Episode 568: How to Build a $50 Million Portfolio Without Your Own Money with Sam Primm

July 15, 2026•3 min read

Custom HTML/CSS/JavaScript

In this episode, I sit down with Sam Primm, a St. Louis investor, entrepreneur, and best-selling author of Own Your Freedom. Sam made a serious jump from a W-2 corporate job into real estate, and he did not play small. Over the last 12 years he has closed more than 2,000 deals and built a rental portfolio worth around $50 million, all without using his own money.

What I appreciated most about this conversation is how candid Sam was. He walked me through the early days of buying one rental at a time on the side, the moment he realized he could keep scaling with other people's money, and the systemized way he finally left his job rather than jumping in blind. We also got real about the last couple of years, where higher interest rates and a tougher market forced him to lean into personal development and grind through a genuine mental test.

We spent a good chunk of time on mentorship and mindset, because that is where Sam and I are cut from the same cloth. He makes the case for why even the best in the world hire coaches, why poor people look at the cost of something while wealthy people look at the return, and why the fear of failure quietly guarantees that people never succeed. He is also refreshingly blunt about the guru problem in this space and what separates people actually doing deals from those just selling courses.

Toward the end, Sam shares what he is focused on now: repositioning a portfolio that got a little too heavy in multifamily during the 2021 and 2022 run-up, and re-honing in on simple single family rentals, which he believes are the best starting point for 90% of newer investors. If you have been on the fence about getting a coach, scared of debt, or afraid to fail, this one will light a fire under you.

Key Talking Points of the Episode

00:00 Introduction and the three paydays philosophy

00:22 Meet Sam Primm: 2,000+ deals and a $50 million portfolio using none of his own money

01:51 Sam's path from an engineer's son to full-time investor

02:07 Reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and starting to invest on the side

04:12 The original goal of one rental a year for ten years

04:46 Seeing the power of scaling with other people's money and leaving the job

05:33 Whether Sam leaned on mentors and coaches early on

06:10 Merging with a local investor who taught him to build a real company

07:09 The mental game of going from solo operator to running a company

07:48 Why the last two or three years have been a mental grind

09:41 Why mentorship still matters at every stage