Real Estate Pros · September 28, 2026 · 23 min listen

How Tim Raybon Turns One Duplex Into Two Sellable Homes to Create More Equity

Show summary

In this episode, Tim Raybon shares his journey from a masonry background to building a successful rental portfolio, emphasizing the importance of operational excellence, strategic planning, and community connections in real estate investing.

Key takeaways

Tim builds duplexes with an optional two-hour firewall (adds about $6,000) so a surveyor can later find the building's center point and legally split it into two separate single family homes, allowing them to be sold individually and increasing equity.
Before buying land, confirm there's an actual sewer tap (not just a nearby sewer line) via municipal scoping; a missing tap can mean an unexpected $20,000-$30,000 cost. In rural areas without sewer, septic can work for zero-lot-line builds but raises shared-maintenance liability issues.
He builds all rentals as one-story with a one-car garage and handicap-accessible features (walk-in shower, wide doorway in at least one bathroom) so units can rent to both young workers and elderly tenants in markets with employers like Nissan, Verizon, and Amazon hubs nearby.
He instructs property managers to reject tenants with credit scores under 620, but makes documented exceptions (e.g., a couple with medical-related debt but strong job and rent verification) rather than applying a blanket rule.
The most common mistake new investors make is overpaying for land or structures out of impatience; Tim advises waiting two to three years if needed to get the numbers right, since overpaying erodes the ability to cover capital expenses like an $8,200 HVAC replacement.
Tim self-funded his entire portfolio (four-family homes and three duplexes) rather than relying heavily on debt, and recommends partnering with a local community bank (not national banks like Bank of America or US Bank) and an 'OGL' officer who can approve loans directly.
He retired at 58 by never overextending: despite having roughly $3 million in available equity, he avoids borrowing against it so he can withstand market shifts (like a major local employer leaving) and still fund maintenance and capital expenditures.

In this episode

About the guest

"Tim Raybon stepped into real estate as a broker in 2004, working short sales, distressed properties, and land acquisitions. In 2015 he became a general contractor to build his own rental portfolio, scaling to four-family homes and three duplexes funded entirely with his own working capital. He retired early at age 58 through compounding rental cash flow and now spends time teaching others his build-to-rent approach. Before real estate, he spent 21 years in the masonry business working with his father, a brick and block layer."

Listen to the audio

“So when I build a duplex, I put a two-hour firewall in mine. I'm not required to, but I still put a two-hour firewall. It costs me about another six thousand dollars to do it. But by doing that... I hire the survey to come back and find the center point of that building and then create two single family homes.”
Tim Raybon

“No deal is better than a bad deal. So you have to be patient.”
Tim Raybon

“Just because the money's there, don't take it. You're better off leaving it there unless you need it.”
Tim Raybon

build-to-rentduplex conversiongeneral contractingland acquisitionsewer tap due diligencetenant screeningproperty managementself-funded investingfinancial independencelocal bank financing

Questions answered in this episode

How can you increase equity on a duplex build?

Tim Raybon builds his duplexes with a two-hour firewall (an extra ~$6,000 cost, even though it's not required by code). After construction, he has a surveyor find the center point of the building and splits it into two separate single family homes legally, so they can be sold individually instead of as one duplex, which increases equity substantially.

What should you check before buying land for a build-to-rent project?

Check land cost first, then confirm sewer, water, and electric access. Importantly, get the lot scoped by the local municipality to confirm there is an actual sewer tap available, not just a sewer line nearby, since adding a tap can cost $20,000-$30,000. If no sewer is available, you can use septic, but that creates liability questions about who maintains it in a zero-lot-line setup.

What credit score policy does Tim Raybon use for tenant screening?

He instructs his property manager not to rent to anyone with a credit score below 620, preferring a vacant unit over a bad tenant. He does allow exceptions, such as a case where a couple had a low score (400-500) due to medical bills from breast cancer treatment but had strong job verification, rent verification, and otherwise clean trade lines.

What design features does Tim Raybon build into his rental units?

He builds everything one-story (no two-story units, to avoid flooding/leak issues from upstairs toilets or showers), includes a one-car garage, and makes units handicap accessible with a walk-in shower and wide doorways in at least one bathroom, even though the whole house isn't handicap-equipped. This lets both young and elderly tenants rent the same unit.

How did Tim Raybon fund his build-to-rent portfolio and retire at 58?

He scaled to four-family homes and three duplexes funded entirely with his own working capital rather than heavy leverage. His key advice is to never overextend: he has about $3 million in available equity he could borrow against but chooses not to, keeping enough cash reserves for capital expenditures like an $8,200 HVAC replacement he recently paid for.

Where should new investors go to get financing for their first build-to-rent deal?

Tim recommends using a local community bank rather than a national bank like Bank of America or US Bank, since local banks are more likely to work with you if you have a relationship, and look for an 'OGL' (officer guaranteed line person) who can make lending decisions directly.

Resources and links

Tim Raybon’s Email Address: timraybon9335@gmail.com

Full transcript

Tim Raybon (00:00)

and then also single family, multi-family mixed use. You have to make sure your codes are correct. your zoning are correct, So when I build a duplex, I put a two-hour firewall in mine. I’m not required to, but I still put a two-hour firewall. It costs me about another six thousand dollars to do it. But by doing that, after I get the building built, I hire the survey to come back and

Find the center point of that building and then create two single family homes. It’s no longer a duplex. They’re two single family homes so you can sell them individually. So you up your equity enormously.

Scott Bursey (01:56)

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. Glad you’re with us. Today we’re pleased to have Tim Raybon on the show. Tim stepped into real estate as a broker back in 2004, cutting his teeth on short sales, distressed properties, and land acquisitions. In 2015, he leveled up by becoming a general contractor to build his own rental portfolio from scratch.

Scaling to four family homes and three duplexes funded purely with his own working capital. Having retired early at age fifty eight through compounding rental cash flow, Tim now spends his time teaching others how to replicate his wealth building blueprint. Listeners expect to learn the fundamentals on build to rent strategy, self funded portfolio scaling, and achieving financial independence. Tim.

Welcome to the show.

Tim Raybon (02:51)

Thank you, Scott. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Scott Bursey (02:53)

It is awesome having you here, my friend, and to help our listeners get up to speed. Please give us the ninety second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Tim Raybon (03:06)

Well, I started off in the construction business as a young man. My dad was a brick and block layer. And for the first twenty one years, I was also in the masonry business. And then the last twenty-one years of my working career, I was a real estate agent broker. And the last half of that career, I became a general contractor and started building a real estate portfolio. really starting back in early two thousands.

And just started slowly growing it. and then again started instead of buying to rehab, I started building to rent is really where I have found that is the most lucrative part of real estate investing today.

Scott Bursey (03:43)

Tim, thank you for highlighting that. And what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to seamlessly transition from brokering deals for client capital into becoming your own general contractor and funding 100% of your build to rent deals with your own working capital. Taking that a step further, what would you say is the biggest operational strength

that holding a general contractor’s license gives you when scaling a build to rent portfolio.

Tim Raybon (04:17)

Well, for me, I think being a general contractor, there’s certain aspects of each trade that A lot of people who want to be real estate investors and maybe build something that are not general contractors or have really no building trades, they don’t really know what to expect. They don’t know if they’re being taken advantage of or not. But if time is money, and so the biggest aspect for me is knowing a good contractor.

But also knowing the codes of a local municipality. So what you don’t want to do if you’re in a time crunch and you’re trying to get this building built in a timely manner, you can’t keep having stall out time by having your contractor fail codes. And so what has helped me the most is knowing the codes.

And then having a contractor that I trust to keep up with the codes. But what I do with all my contractors I make them go down to the local municipality and say, listen, check the current codes to make sure you’re up to speed with the local municipality. I don’t want any delays. And that has really helped a lot to keep the process going, keep it on schedule.

Scott Bursey (06:13)

Digging a bit deeper, Tim, how do you structure your job site management so construction oversight doesn’t take over your retired lifestyle?

Tim Raybon (06:23)

Well again, it’s hiring the right subs, hiring a really qualified sub, someone that again knows what they’re doing. They get in there and they get the job done and they’re good and clean. They don’t leave a big mess for the contractor coming in behind them, to complain about and slow them down. But I think that’s probably having a relationship with them as well, and they kind of know that you

don’t like to waste time and you preface all this early on. You say, here’s my deadline. Here’s what I need. Here I need this done by this time. And that’s how you keep things on schedule. and obviously you want to call them two or three weeks in advance and say, listen, I need you here on the Oct for example, October fifteenth. So get out of,

Get w done what you have to get done, but I need you on the job side October 15th. And then I need for you to be done by October 21st. That type of stuff is really what you need. Now, if it’s a framing, obviously that takes a little longer. Electric may take a little longer. Drive will may take a little longer, but you let them know here’s what here’s the time that I need you here, and here’s the time that I’ve allotted for you to be done.

Scott Bursey (07:27)

And love to hear what was the hardest operational hurdle or blind spot you had to overcome when making the leap from broker to full time build to rent investor?

Tim Raybon (07:39)

I started out buying houses and rehabbing them. but I bought to hold the property. I rehabbed them myself. I did all the work myself and rehabbed them. but I’m very, very impatient. And that’s probably my biggest obstacle. I like to get things done quickly.

sometimes when you do have to hire a sub, you can hire the wrong, you can hire a good sub, but if they can’t get there when you want them to get there, and you say, well, I can’t wait on you, I’m gonna hire someone else that you really don’t know, and they show up and they don’t do as good a job as the person that you knew could, that can back you up a little bit because it you have to go back and fix things. And so that I get very impatient with that.

Scott Bursey (08:16)

Appreciate you taking us down that path, Tim. If you could help us understand, where do you see the most lucrative market opportunities right now for building new single family homes and duplexes to hold long term?

Tim Raybon (08:32)

Okay, well, I think the most lucrative for me and some other contractors I know around town that build a rent, the most lucrative right now is, I believe, are duplexes, triplexes, and quadruplexes. But what I do with my duplexes, I do something a little different. whenever I and you have to obviously make sure it’s zoned for multifamily.

so that is really where I have found it to be the most lucrative for me. because you go from just an investor buying a duplex to now you can sell

this villas, if you will, or zero lot line homes individually. And that has become the most lucrative aspect for me.

Scott Bursey (09:48)

Tim, if you could walk us through what specific metric do you evaluate first before acquiring a parcel of land to guarantee it will cash flow as a rental?

Tim Raybon (09:59)

Well, land costs, number one. does it have sewer? Does it have obviously water, electric, near it? Your biggest obstacle is not water or electric. That’s a pretty common thing, but sometimes if you’re out a little farther, you may even though there may be sewer ran through that area, you may not have a sewer tab. So

The best thing to do then is to make sure that you get it scoped before you make an offer on it by the local municipality to guarantee either there is or there is not a sewer tap on that on that lot. Because if not, you’re looking at twenty or thirty thousand dollars worth of sewer tabs. now, if you’re out in a rural area, you can still build a duplex. And again, like I mentioned a minute ago, you can zero lot them out.

But then it requires a septic area. Well, that gets a little more vicarious because then you have to worry about who owns the septic. if it goes out, which party takes care of it? what if the other party doesn’t have any money? And so that can get really vicarious. So the best way to do that is make sure you’re in a local municipality that provides sewer. But again,

Check and make sure that there is a, even though there’s a sewer line, does not guarantee you’ll have a sewer tap. And so you want to make sure you don’t want a twenty-five or thirty thousand dollar expenditure come up and you were not aware of it.

Scott Bursey (11:15)

Appreciate that breakdown. And leaning into this, what do you view as the biggest market threat rental portfolio cash flow today? And how are you protecting your portfolio against it?

Tim Raybon (11:29)

I think the biggest obstacle is not knowing what you’re building. like for an example, I mentioned my duplexes. Well, when I build one, I make sure that they are handicapped, not with rails and bars and all that kind of stuff. you can’t allow that, obviously, but I make sure they have a walk in shower. If I have two restrooms and normally all of my buildings have two

Restrooms for each unit. At least one of them are going to have a walk-in shower and then have a doorway large enough that you can get a wheelchair through there. but the whole house doesn’t have to be that way, just enough that it’s handicapped accessible. That a 20-year-old can rent it, or an 80-year-old can rent it that is handicapped. So I think you need to be in tune.

With your area. We have a lot of elderly people in our area, but our area is growing. We have Nissan here. Then we have all the suppliers to Nissan. we have a big Verizon hub here. We have a lot of other big hubs here. Amazon has a huge hub here. So we have a lot of young workforce. So either one of them can rent the unit. And you’re better off always having a one-car garage.

And being on one level. I build nothing two story. I won’t buy anything two story. because sooner or later you’re gonna run into a situation where someone has flooded something upstairs, a toilet or a shower, and it’s gonna be nothing but a big headache for at least six months. So I do not do that.

Scott Bursey (12:53)

Thanks for pointing that out. And interested to know how do you structure tenant leases or property management to ensure your rental income keeps growing yearly?

Tim Raybon (13:04)

Sure. I recommend everyone get a highly qualified property manager. I manage a couple of mine, but it’s people I’ve known for years. but they still pay fair market rent. but I would highly recommend using a property manager. and you have to really, really try to find a really good one.

They’re not just because you get one doesn’t mean they’re good. You have to interview them, several of them. But what I do, I send a prerequisite, I tell my property manager, do not rent to anyone that has a credit score less than 620. I would rather the unit stay vacant than have someone in there that you’ll rent to that has a low credit score.

However, but there are exceptions. So you have to make sure you know all exceptions. For example, I had a couple one time through via my property manager, and the woman unfortunately had went through breast cancer, and she had a excessive amount of medical bills. Their credit score was like 400 or around between 400 and 500. And the property manager says, I checked them out.

They really love the unit. they need one story and it would just be perfect for them. But I’ve checked them all out and they meet all the other qualifications except they’ve had a few judgment, medical expense judgments against them. But other than that, they have good job verification, good rent verification, and all their other trade lines are paid for. You can make exceptions under that. But normally, I’m saying normally when someone has a low credit score, that’s a bad marriage.

Scott Bursey (14:34)

Tim, when you are teaching others to build real estate wealth, what is the most frequent mistake you see new investors make when trying to acquire their first rentals?

Tim Raybon (14:44)

Overpaying for land, or overpaying for a structure. They just overpay it because they want it so badly and they’re not willing to wait. I always tell them, look, no deal is better than a bad deal. So you have to be patient. And if it takes you two or three years to get it and you get it right, well then it’s worth the wait. But if you rush in and you pay too much.

And you can’t make the numbers work, it’s going to eat you alive. And then when you start having capital expenditures happen, HVAC goes out, or maybe the roof goes out, and then you have, you still have to meet your deductibles, and that’s some expenses that you’re just never going to get back. It’s going to take you a very long time to get back. so in our market, it has to be cash flow. Now, if I’m in San Diego, I may buy for appreciation.

You’re not going to get much cash flow in San Diego. But I do know in five years that my house is going to be worth probably three or four hundred thousand dollars more than what it is today, probably. So I can buy for appreciation and stall off on cash flow as long as I’m breaking even. But you can’t do that here. so you just have to be willing to wait. and so if you rush in, you’ll regret it.

Scott Bursey (15:48)

And expanding on that a little bit, is there an additional step or two you’d recommend to anyone wanting to fund their first rental deal using their own working capital?

Tim Raybon (15:58)

Well, again, ’cause I I’ve just been in the building business pretty much all my life. that just come natural to me. but a lot of people it doesn’t. and a lot of people don’t have the funds. so just make sure that whoever you

help get to fund your project with you have a really good relationship with them. Now it could be a hard loan lender or it could be your bank, local bank. your local bank is your best bank. If you go to Bank of America, forget it, they’re not gonna give you the money. If you go to US bank, they’re not gonna give you the money typically. So you need to partner up with a local bank.

someone that can make a decision that day. Well we call them OGLs, officer guaranteed line person in that bank. But a good relationship there, a place where you bank is probably the best place to go to get money initially. ‘Cause they know you the best. That’s if you have a relationship with them.

Scott Bursey (16:46)

Tim, this is the question our listeners have been waiting for. What is the number one deep dive strategy that unlocked your ability to retire at age fifty eight and enjoy ever growing rental profits?

Tim Raybon (17:00)

well don’t oversin yourself. right now at the age that I am, and even when I retired, I have never overscended myself. and I never borrowed against my units just because I could, I have probably three million dollars worth of equity that I can go get today if I wanted it. But I gotta pay it back.

And then you may get overextended. Then what if something happens to the economy? The economy slows or whatever. Nissan could pull up and say they’re leaving, for example. Well, you just don’t overextend yourself. Be patient. enjoy your life. I’m not a believer in living below your means. You don’t spend forty or fifty years working to live below your means.

I’m not a person that believes that I think you should live your best life after you’ve worked hard. But you can’t be stupid with it either. you have to know your finances. just know your finances. Have plenty of money set aside that if you have a capital expenditure arise. Like I just put an $8,200 HVAC unit in one of my houses. The unit was, 15 years old.

And I had built an addition on the back of it. So it required a larger unit now. And so, everything is since COVID has gone way up. And so you better know that. You better know that what you bought 10 years ago is up 30 or 40 percent. In some cases, 50 percent. So you gotta you have to just, not live above your raising, if you will. but enjoy your life.

I get to go wherever I want to go. I get to do whatever I want to do within reason I’m talking about. but I still do a lot of work and maintenance on my properties. I just painted one of my buildings the other day. I did it myself because I can. It gives me something to do and I enjoy working. but that’s the biggest advice that I can give anyone

Just because the money’s there, don’t take it. you’re better off leaving it there unless you need it.

Scott Bursey (18:41)

Thank you for giving us that exact blueprint. And for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, Tim, stay in your lane or perhaps even collaborate with you on future deals, what is the best way for them to plug into your pipeline and reach you directly?

Tim Raybon (19:40)

You can reach me directly via email, is the best way. Then I’ll give you my number from there. I’ll be glad to give you my number. But they can reach me through my Gmail account, and it’s just my name, Tim Raybon. It’s T-I-M-R-A-Y-B-O-N 9335 at gmail.com. They can reach me there. And then if they want to send me an email

Requesting information, I’ll be glad to reach back out to them and give them any advice I possibly can.

Scott Bursey (20:08)

Tim, thank you so much for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast.

Tim Raybon (20:12)

You bet. It’s been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Scott.

Scott Bursey (20:15)

And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be fueling your tanks with a lineup of elite guest, just like Tim Raybon, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.