The 20-Hour Rule
Cap the hours first, then design the portfolio that fits inside the cap.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 86%
Meyer holds himself to a rule of spending no more than 20 hours a month on his entire real estate portfolio — and says he rarely comes close. The rule is a design constraint, not an outcome: because the cap is fixed, it filters what he'll buy. He doesn't flip houses, despite calling it a super-profitable way to make money, because he doesn't have the time. He doesn't do heavy renovations. He gives up profit to property managers and general partners who run his investments. Getting there took years — his first deal took 10 hours a week self-managing, then five as he got better. The point is that the portfolio evolved to suit his lifestyle rather than his lifestyle bending to the portfolio, which is what let him keep a full-time job at BiggerPockets he actually enjoys.
Origin
Meyer never wanted to be a full-time investor — he had a startup, then a career in data at BiggerPockets, and found he didn't fit the real estate education crowd chasing thousands of units. He discovered most of the BiggerPockets audience was like him: another career, a family, no desire to do this full-time. So he imposed a personal hours cap and designed the portfolio backwards from it.
Core principles
- 01Set the time budget as a hard rule, then let it filter the deals — not the other way round.
- 02Passivity is bought with profit; name the trade-off instead of pretending it's free.
- 03The portfolio should evolve with your lifestyle, not lock you into the life you had at 23.
- 04It takes time to reach passivity — early deals will be hours-heavy.
How to run it
- 1
Set the cap as a rule, not an aspiration
Declare the maximum hours per month you will spend on the portfolio. Meyer's is 20. Treat it as a constraint the portfolio must satisfy.
Watch out Expect early deals to blow past the cap — Meyer's first was 10 hours a week, and self-managing seven units was genuinely time-consuming.
- 2
Filter deal types against the cap
Rule out structurally time-heavy strategies. Flipping runs 20-30 hours a week. Heavy renovation rentals demand contractor management. If they don't fit the cap, they're not your deals.
Pro tip You can still get exposure to excluded strategies by being the capital partner rather than the operator.
- 3
Buy out the operational work
Use full-service property management and general partners to remove day-to-day hours from your plate, while retaining asset management.
- 4
Name the profit you're trading away
Acknowledge explicitly that fees to managers and GPs are the price of the hours. Make it a chosen trade-off rather than a leak.
Pro tip Meyer: 'oftentimes I'm giving up some of my profit... but that's my choice.'
- 5
Re-fit the portfolio as life changes
Revisit the cap and the mix as your career, family, and interests shift, and reshape the portfolio accordingly.
In the wild
Meyer's first self-managed Denver property took roughly 10 hours a week, dropping to five as he got better. Over the years he deliberately chose relatively passive deals and outsourced management, while his portfolio grew across asset classes and markets.
→ Fifteen years in, his whole portfolio runs under a 20-hour-a-month cap, and he rarely even reaches 20.
Common mistakes
Chasing the most profitable strategy regardless of hours
Flipping is highly profitable and is also effectively a 20-30 hour-a-week job. Taking it on without a time budget is how investors end up with a second career they didn't choose.
Expecting passivity immediately
Meyer is candid that it takes time to reach that level of passivity. Investors who expect hands-off returns on deal one quit when the first tenant turnover lands.
Is it for you?
Best for
People with a demanding career, business, or family who want real estate to augment income without becoming the income
Not ideal for
Investors optimizing purely for maximum returns, or who genuinely want real estate to be their full-time business
From the transcript
“I have a rule for myself to only spend 20 hours a month on my real estate portfolio which sounds really low, but it's I…”
“Over time I've just designed my portfolio to suit my lifestyle and I choose deals that are going to be relatively passive. And that means…”
“Oftentimes I'm giving up some of my profit to property managers or general partners who manage my investments for me, but that's my choice.”
From the episode
Dave Meyer: Build Your Real Estate Empire with Smart Investing
Dave Meyer