$7,500 first deal investment
Remington Lyman started his real estate investing journey with only $7,500 to his name, purchasing his first duplex via a house hack with a roommate.
Snapshot · BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast
I Started Investing with Just $7,500. Now I Own Millions in Rentals
Explore episode
Jul 6, 2026
Where this was said
Remington's Background: Rifle Team, JPMorgan, and the First House Hack
At 3:53 · chapter starts 1:58
Remington's story starts in an unexpected place: a rifle team scholarship to Ohio State, where he majored in finance. After graduating, he landed a typical analyst job at JPMorgan, but his entrepreneurial instincts never settled. When his apartment lease ended, he and his roommate — splitting $300/month each in a roach-infested apartment to save money — decided to stop paying rent to someone else. They bought a $330,000 duplex in Columbus, renovated the other side themselves, found another tenant on Craigslist, and ended up making about $50 per month while living essentially for free [1] — Remington Lyman "First duplex cost $330,000 in 2017: Remington's first duplex in Columbus, Ohio cost $330,000 in 2017, which he and his partner considered e…" 03:58 . It was a classic, scrappy first step — but it set the template for everything that followed.
From Roach-Infested Apartment to First Duplex
Remington and his college roommate split $600/month rent in a roach-infested apartment to save up for a duplex down payment. Within months they had their first property and were living nearly rent-free while building equity.
First duplex cost $330,000 in 2017
Remington's first duplex in Columbus, Ohio cost $330,000 in 2017, which he and his partner considered expensive at the time.
2% raise after stellar performance
After working extremely hard at JPMorgan, Remington received only a 2% raise — the equivalent of an inflation-matching bump — which motivated him to invest in real estate.
10 properties in 4 years at JPMorgan
While working full-time at JPMorgan, Remington grew his portfolio to 10 rental properties before being laid off in 2019.
Similar snapshots
$14K/month in 6 months
Sam built Algrow from zero to $14,000 in monthly revenue within just six months of shipping his first MVP.
10,000 users in 6 months
Algrow reached over 10,000 users in roughly six months, driven almost entirely by organic Discord community growth.
First 400 users from Discord
Sam acquired his first 400 users entirely through Discord communities, without paid advertising or traditional outreach.
480 new customers in one month
Algrow added exactly 480 new paying customers in its most recent month, demonstrating strong ongoing growth.
£10K revenue in last 4 weeks
Sam's Stripe dashboard showed over £10,000 in revenue in the last four weeks, equivalent to roughly $13,000–$14,000 USD.
Free access for early users as growth hack
Sam gave all early users free access so they could show the tool to friends, turning them into live demos and advocates who helped the product spread virally.
No self-promo rule exploit: screen sharing
By silently screen-sharing his tool in Discord voice chats rather than posting links, Sam attracted curiosity without violating no-self-promo server rules.
$10K+ from affiliate marketing first
Before building Algrow, Sam and two friends made over $10,000 in revenue through affiliate marketing for RizzApp by posting faceless texting story content.
First 100 customers from email list
Daily content drives traffic to a waitlist landing page; those email subscribers become your first 100 customers because they already trust you and want to solve the pain you address.
