Part-time real estate investors explain how they used creative financing to scale to 24 units in less than a year

Connor Swofford and Pieter Louw closed their first property together in October 2024. Nearly a year later, they own 24 rental units across nine properties.

The childhood friends, who met in seventh grade, invest in Buffalo, where Louw lives and works as a real estate agent. He has a construction background, while Swofford, a startup consultant based in Charleston, contributes business experience.

"Early on, as we started things together, I kept questioning why he wanted to do this with me, when all I thought I brought to the table was my ability to split a down payment 50/50," Swofford told Business Insider. "Pieter's repeated response was, 'There's not much better than having fun, making money, and doing it all with your best friend.'"

Swofford and Louw, who both turn 32 in March, share the strategies they used to buy nine investment properties in 12 months without using much of their own savings.

Swofford and Louw have known each other since middle school. Courtesy of Connor Swofford and Pieter Louw

From 0 to 9 properties: Scaling with the BRRRR method and financing with hard money

Their first deal was a three-unit property — a duplex with a carriage house — that needed a minor rehab.

"The front two units were pretty much ready to go, and one was already rented. The carriage house needed some work, but nothing crazy," said Louw. "So, it was a good intro to doing a construction project that wasn't a complete gut job, and where we could still cash flow from the beginning."

It was also an intro to the BRRRR — short for buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat — method, which would allow them to scale quickly by recycling their initial capital, rather than coming up with new capital for each deal.

When buying an investment property, "you're really looking at at least 20% down," explained Louw. "Even with a $300,000 or $400,000 property, with closing costs, you have to come up with 60 to 80 grand, which is not very scalable."

He and Swofford put about $40,000 worth of work into their first property and built about $90,000 in equity by the time they refinanced.

"We were pretty much able to pull out all the money that we invested into it and take that money for the next one," said Louw. "That really kick-started us."

As for financing, they've done each of their deals with hard money. They can secure money faster this way than going through a traditional lender, and, now that they have a solid track record to show their lenders, they said they're also able to lock in better rates.

However, going through a hard money lender can be risky, Swofford noted: "It's a big balloon payment, you have to personal guarantee the loan, and there's a bit more paperwork and harder compliance hurdles to clear."

Thanks to Louw's construction background, they can confidently predict their rehab costs and timeline, which is critical.

"The two biggest things are making sure that your construction budget is reasonably accurate, because that would be one thing that could get you in trouble, and knowing your purchase price and what the value would be afterward — the ARV," said Louw.

"Because if you buy a place for $200,000, put $100,000 into it, and then it's only worth $300,000, once you refinance, you can only pull 75% of that out, so you'd still have a lot of money in it. At that point, you might as well have just bought a $300,000 place with the normal investment loan — 25% down — rather than go through those headaches."

If you don't build equity with the rehab, "you're really just slowing yourself down for the future," he said.

Another key to their success has been buying multi-families — they prefer three- to 10-unit properties — that don't need a full rehab and have at least one livable unit.

"Almost every property of ours has had a tenant still living in it, and that tenant is basically able to pay the interest expense as we are rehabbing the property," explained Swofford. "So, we basically get to semi-rehab it for free in a way."

It also helps that their rental portfolio remains a side hustle. Any money they earn from it goes toward vacations, their nest egg, or their kids' future educations, but they're not relying on it to make ends meet.

"We're at a point where we don't need to make any emotional investments. We don't need a property at any specific point," said Louw. "And if it doesn't work out, if we lose to another investor or anything, it's like, 'Okay, well, the numbers didn't make sense for us. Let's move on to the next one.'"