Why I’m Investing as a Limited Partner Instead of Buying More Real Estate
- Cassidy Burns
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
For most of my career, I built wealth the traditional real estate way:
Buy the property, renovate it, lease it, manage it, and keep the cash flow.
And it worked.
But over the last few years—especially as my personal portfolio grew—I had to face a truth that most investors eventually run into and it’s talked about much:
Owning individual rental properties becomes more expensive, more time-consuming, and more unpredictable than people expect… especially when compared to investing as an LP in larger commercial deals.
Today, the only real estate I plan to personally own going forward are lifestyle assets, think beach house (Isle of Palms, SC) & mountain house (Massanutten Mountain), and future business locations that our companies can operate out of, leasing those buildings back to said companies. Everything else? I’m putting my money into LP positions inside BPG Holdings’ Funds.
Here’s why.
1. Individual Rentals Look Great on Paper… Until Real-Life Variability Hits
On a spreadsheet, it's simple:
Rent comes in
Mortgage goes out
You keep the difference
But real life doesn’t work that cleanly. Because mortgage + taxes + insurance are the predictable costs.
Everything else is not. Repairs, maintenance, utilities, and VACANCY
Let’s walk through my four personally owned properties and the very real challenges they created.
2. Real Example #1: DC Condo – 14th Street Corridor
Rent: $3,600/month
On paper, this condo should have been a trophy asset:
Prime location, stable tenant pool, premium rent, new construction when I purchased it in 2017.
But here’s what most investors don’t see:
Vacancy Is a Killer
Just one vacant month wipes out 8–12 months of cash flow depending on your spread.
With turnover, I often lost:
1 month of rent ($3,600)
Cleaning & paint: $425
Minor repairs: $250–$500
Leasing fees: one month rent ($3,600)
That’s $7,825 gone every time a tenant left.
Repairs Are Magnified in Condos
Condo plumbing issues? HOA only covers the walls.
Everything inside is mine.
I once had a leak that cost $1,900 of damage which the association didn’t cover. I had to repair my dishwasher, the garbage disposal, and a few wet spots in the unit below me. All of this cash had to come out of pocket as well, no way to finance it or delay the payments.
When the spread between rent and PITI is only a few hundred dollars, you can go negative fast.
3. Real Example #2: DC Condo – Dupont Circle
Rent: $2,700/month
Dupont is consistent, but older buildings bring older-building issues.
Common Problems I Had to Pay For
Water heater replacement: $1,400
HVAC capacitor failure during summer peak: $375
Dishwasher replacement: $650
Two-week vacancy between tenants: $1,350 loss
New deck…. $15,000 (this is considered a CAPEX, but not something I was expecting.)
Even when cash flow is “positive,” these events turn a profitable year into a breakeven one almost instantly. For this
4. Real Example #3: DC Duplex – NOMA
Rent: $5,350/month total
This property should have been a cash cow. It’s a duplex in one of DC’s hottest neighborhoods, I have a 2.7% Interest rate and I purchased it at a great price at that time, $880,000 for a DUPLEX!
But duplexes mean double everything:
Double the Systems
Two HVAC systems
Two water heaters
Two kitchens
Two sets of appliances
Which means: twice the breakdowns.
Double the Potential Vacancy
If one unit goes vacant? You lose 50% of your income, not 8–10%.
I’ve had:
HVAC repair: $900
New Water Heater(s): Yes I’ve had to replace both since 2021 ($3,000)
Lower unit turn: $25,000 (we did a full unit rehab on this once our original inherited tenants moved out)
Upper unit vacancy month: $2,650 lost
Water line blockage: $675
Great long-term asset, yes. But unpredictable, labor-intensive, and operationally demanding.
5. Real Example #4: Charleston, SC Single Family Home
Rent: $3,700/month
This one I purchased with a 1031 exchange in 2022, and it’s been consistently rented out, very little vacancy, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t dumped significant money into it.
Even then:
Out-of-Pocket Surprises
Interior Renovation in 2024: $40,000
Crawl space moisture remediation: $1,100
New deck: $15,000
On top of that, a little harder on the management side since it’s out of state, it takes time to build business partnerships and relationships with reliable vendors.
6. When You Scale a Personal Portfolio… It Becomes a Second Job
Repairs → your responsibility
Vacancy → your problem
Tenant issues → your time
Capital expenditures → your pocket
Insurance claims → your headache
Renovations → your oversight
Bookkeeping → your weekends
Even with property management, YOU are still the asset manager.
And when you own multiple properties, those responsibilities compound.
This was the turning point for me.
7. The LP Model: Same Wealth Creation—None of the Stress
As an LP investor in BPG Holdings funds, here’s what my investment experience looks like now:
No Maintenance
I’m not paying for HVAC failures, roof replacements, or tree removals.
No Vacancy Risk
Large multifamily and commercial assets absorb vacancy across multiple tenants.
No Out-of-Pocket Surprises
All capital improvements are budgeted, planned, and professionally executed.
No Time Commitment
I don’t get calls.
I don’t manage contractors.
I don’t respond to tenant issues.
Alignment of Incentives
I earn from:
Preferred return
Cash flow distributions
Appreciation
Refinance events
Capital events (dispositions)
In other words, I build wealth without doing the work, get the same benefits, and don’t need additional capital on a monthly basis if/when something does go wrong, that’s what the already raised capital reserves are for.
8. The Moment It Became Crystal Clear
When I compared my personal rental portfolio returns—after repairs, vacancy, capex, and mental bandwidth—to my LP returns inside the BPG Funds, I realized:
My LP investments outperformed my rental properties on a risk-adjusted and time- adjusted basis.
Not because the rentals were bad assets.
But because scale wins.
Operational efficiency wins.
Professional management wins.
Predictability wins.
Time freedom wins.
And the LP model gives me all four.
9. So What Will I Still Personally Buy?
The 2 asset classes I mentioned before:
My beach house in Isle of Palms, SC (lifestyle asset)
A potential mountain / lake house in VA (we are still deciding on this, still lifestyle asset)
Business locations for our businesses to operate out of.
All of my additional real estate allocated investment dollars will be through:
BPG Holdings Investment Offerings
Not because I run the funds…
but because the structure simply outperforms individual ownership once your portfolio reaches scale and I treat it like the stock market, dollar cost averaging my investments when capital is available.
10. Final Thought
If you’re a busy professional, business owner, or someone who wants to build wealth without adding another job to your life…
LP investing often delivers the same wealth-building benefits with none of the operational stress.
It’s why I’m continuing to invest this way—and why so many of our investors do too.
If you’d like to see BPG Holdings’ performance now that we’re a 506(c) fund and allowed to publicly share results, I’m happy to send you the full deck once you register for our investor portal.
Happy Investing ✌️
— Cassidy Burns
Founder, BPG Holdings
