An investor who built a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio by buying 'pigs' explains how he finds overlooked properties

• Jeremy Barker started buying real estate when his startup needed a bigger headquarters.
• He's scaled to more than 30 properties that bring in seven figures in annual rental income.
• Barker's strategy involves finding and buying overlooked properties.

Jeremy Barker stumbled into real estate investing when his startup outgrew its original space, prompting him to look into large commercial properties.

He bought a bigger space than he needed, leased nearly 80% of it to tenants, and started generating rental income from his new headquarters. What's more, he said the building has more than quadrupled in value within the past decade.

From there, "I just rinsed and repeated," Barker told Business Insider.

The entrepreneur, who started his business Murphy Door to supplement his $1,600 a month firefighter paycheck, has grown to more than 30 commercial and residential properties that generate seven figures in annual rental income. BI confirmed his property ownership by reviewing his 2024 property tax notices and lease agreements between him and his tenants.

One key to his real estate strategy is buying overlooked properties. That's how he scores deals and, ultimately, sees millions of dollars in appreciation.

'I like to look for pigs'

Barker is looking at buildings that most people aren't.

"I like to look for pigs," he said — meaning, something that's dilapidated or doesn't look nice, but has potential. "We could put lipstick on it and make it look really pretty."

For example, while driving through his market in Utah, he noticed a 90,000-square-foot call center right off the highway. The old office space, which was still littered with desks, chairs, and servers, had been empty for a couple of years.

"The property is just dilapidated," he recalled. "The outside's ugly, the landscape's overgrown, the trees are too big, the inside looks really overwhelming because it's a lot of square footage with a lot of stuff."

While most investors wouldn't even do a walkthrough, Barker saw an opportunity.

"Coming from a construction background, I'm like, I could cut down the big trees, get the yard cleaned up, paint the exterior for cheap, put new LED on the outside, gut all the cubicles, sell those for some kind of money, and then I can do new flooring," he said.

He knew he had leverage, since the building had been sitting on the market for years. It was listed for about $3.4 million, and Barker said he initially offered $2 million: "It came back to $2.9 million, and then I found about $500,000 or $600,000 worth of deferred maintenance issues that they credited me at close, so I ended up buying this for $2.4 million."

Before closing, he put a "for lease" sign up outside the building and landed his first tenants before even putting any money down. Within 12 months of purchasing the property, it was fully leased.

Barker isn't just looking for dilapidated buildings that have potential. He has specific location criteria.

"I tell my realtor, 'Find me something that is in a good spot. It doesn't have to be the best spot. It just has to have some lower vacancy rates in the area. It has to be pretty accessible to business, so good highways next to it.'"

Finding overlooked properties

Barker has two tried-and-true strategies that help him land deals.

"First and foremost, the secret is: How long has it been on the market? How desperate are these guys?" he said. "The long market tells are important to me."

Chances are, he'll have more negotiating power on a building that's been vacant for more than a year than one that just came on the market.

Next, he's looking for companies that are moving out of their office space.

"This is kind of my secret recipe: If I can find companies that are selling their main office. Usually, it's single-tenant occupants held by the corporation that are now moving to a different headquarters."

This type of seller is usually not looking to lease the space — they just want to sell, explained Barker: "If you can find a single company that's leaving, they put it for sale only and it sits there for four or five years because everybody sees the building for sale, but it never says 'for lease.' Most people aren't going to buy the whole big building."

That's where he'll come in, sign a purchase and sale agreement that allows him to immediately put up a 'for lease' sign before closing, and "all of a sudden, your phone starts blowing up," he said. "So if you can get it to where you're the future lessor, and you get the calls when the sign transfers from 'for sale' to 'for lease,' now you can see demand."