Peter Yoder, Founder of Series Homes On Why 97% of Landlords Can’t Access the Best Deal in Real Estate

“All three major federal lending programs say as a primary residence loan applicant for a two-to-four unit property, whatever unit you’re not occupying we’re going to add seventy-five percent of that to your salary when you apply for the loan.”

Wait. What?

You’re telling me that if I buy a duplex as my primary residence, the bank will let me count 75% of the other unit’s rent as income when qualifying for the mortgage?

“Your purchasing power in a six cap market for a two-to-four unit building is double what it would be for a single-family home,” Peter explains. “And you can do that with three and a half percent down through FHA.”

This is the hidden wealth-building mechanism that 97% of American landlords should know about but don’t. And it’s exactly why Peter founded Series Homes to close the gap between policy intention and market reality.

The Missing Middle Problem

Peter’s background gives him a unique lens on housing policy. Second hire at Flock. Financial analyst at Progress Residential before that. He studied housing policy in grad school.

“Home affordability has become a first-class problem,” he tells me. “You can’t open the news without hearing Trump saying we need to do something about home affordability, blaming corporate landlords which is obviously the wrong solution.”

I frame the fundamental challenge: “It’s the availability to build supply. The demand pre-exists. The availability to build supply and the funds to be able to create that supply it’s the foundations of capitalism. Without that, you’ve got no deal.”

“Exactly,” Peter agrees. “You can break down the housing market very roughly into three buckets. One is single-family, your major home builders. The second is what folks term missing middle or two, three, or four unit buildings. And the third is a five-plus multifamily.”

Here’s where it gets interesting.

“Two-to-four is perhaps the most naturally occurring affordable housing typology out there,” Peter explains. “If it’s on a single-family zoned lot, it’s large enough for the rental units to cover much if not most of the owner’s mortgage. But it’s built at one percent of the rate of single-family and large multifamily combined.”

One percent.

Think about that. The housing typology with the best economics for both owners and renters is being built at a fraction of the rate it should be.

Why?

The Sequencing Failure

“There’s a fundamental sequencing failure in how consumers find, finance, and manage these things as primary residences,” Peter tells me.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work according to federal lending policy:

Step 1: Buy a two-to-four unit property as your primary residence Step 2: Live in one unit for 12 consecutive months Step 3: Qualify for the mortgage using 75% of the rental income from the other units Step 4: Put down as little as 3.5% through FHA

The math is stunning. Peter breaks it down:

“Let’s say you make $100,000 a year. Your debt-to-income ratio maxes out around forty-three to fifty percent depending on your lender. That means you can afford about $4,000 a month in housing payment. In a six cap market, that gets you maybe a $600,000 single-family home.”

“But if you buy a duplex,” Peter continues, “and one unit rents for $2,000 a month, we add seventy-five percent of that $1,500 to your $100,000 salary. Now you’re qualifying as if you make $118,000. Your purchasing power just jumped to $1.2 million.”

Double the purchasing power. Same income.

So why isn’t everyone doing this?

The Three Gaps Series Homes Is Closing

“There are three fundamental gaps,” Peter explains. “Search, financing, and management.”

Gap 1: Search

“If you go to Zillow or Redfin or Realtor.com and you filter for two-to-four unit properties, you get garbage results,” Peter tells me. “The MLS data is terrible. Properties are mis-tagged. Square footage is wrong. Unit counts are inaccurate. It’s a mess.”

Series Homes built their own search engine specifically for two-to-four unit properties. They clean the MLS data, verify unit counts, calculate actual rental comps, and surface properties that actually qualify for the 75% rule.

“We’re aggregating all the listings, cleaning the data, and only showing you properties that work as owner-occupied investments,” Peter says.

Gap 2: Financing

This is where it gets tricky. The 75% rule exists in federal lending policy. But most mortgage brokers and loan officers don’t know how to underwrite it properly.

“If you call ten mortgage brokers and ask if you can count rental income on a property you’re buying as a primary residence, eight will tell you no,” Peter explains. “They don’t understand the policy. They don’t know how to structure the deal. They’re used to single-family transactions.”

Series Homes partners with lenders who specialize in two-to-four unit owner-occupied financing. They know the rules, they know the documentation requirements, and they know how to get the deal done.

“We make sure buyers are working with lenders who actually know what they’re doing,” Peter says.

Gap 3: Management

Here’s the part that most people don’t think about until it’s too late: once you buy the property and move in, you’re now a landlord.

“Most first-time buyers have no idea what they’re getting into,” Peter admits. “They don’t know how to screen tenants, write leases, handle maintenance, deal with late rent. It’s overwhelming.”

Series Homes provides management support or connects buyers with local property managers who specialize in small multifamily. They handle tenant placement, leases, maintenance coordination everything you’d expect from a professional PM company.

“The goal is to make this as turnkey as possible,” Peter says. “You live in one unit, we handle the rest.”

The Ninety-Seven Percent

I bring up a stat that frames why this matters: “Ninety-seven percent of the rental market is composed of mom-and-pop buyers. This is how most people build wealth through real estate.”

Peter lights up. “Exactly. The institutional players Blackstone, Invitation Homes, Progress they’re focused on single-family and large multifamily. Two-to-four unit properties are too small, too fragmented, too operationally complex for them.”

“But for an individual buyer?” Peter continues. “This is the best deal in real estate. You’re getting institutional-quality financing on a property that cash flows from day one. You’re building equity in an appreciating asset. You’re reducing your housing cost to near zero. And you’re doing it with minimal money down.”

The opportunity is massive. Peter estimates there are millions of potential buyers who could benefit from this strategy but don’t know it exists.

“People think real estate investing is for rich people,” Peter says. “But this strategy was literally designed by federal policy to help first-time buyers build wealth. It’s been in place since the 1960s. We’re just making it accessible.”

The Personality Defect Required to Start a Company

I ask Peter the question I ask every founder: “What maddening event occurred in your life that you decided to take this on? What personality defect do you have that made you decide to start a company?”

Peter laughs. “I think it’s a combination of a little bit of delusion, a little bit of naivete, a high tolerance for pain and uncertainty.”

He pauses. “But I always like to think about multiple inputs to the housing policy conversation. Zoning is perhaps the most often talked about. But I think the most important thing is actually financing the mortgage policy.”

“I studied housing policy in grad school,” Peter continues. “And two-to-four unit properties are fascinating to me because they’re perhaps the most naturally occurring affordable housing typology out there. But they’re built at one percent of the rate they should be. I started this business to explore why that’s happening and fix it.”

Later in our conversation, Peter adds something that resonates: “I have to say, I think you have to have a level of masochism as well. People are always challenged by the idea of getting a hundred no’s. It sounds really great in theory. Then you go do it and you’re like, this doesn’t make me feel good. But if you don’t make it, you’re just going to be constantly living in this weird place.”

The First Sale Is a Conversation

As we’re wrapping up, Peter asks me a question: “Tell me more about your journey from the perspective of teachings that you can share with me. I don’t really have much figured out other than knowing that you just have to keep moving forward.”

I share something I’ve been thinking about: “The first sale you gotta make is a conversation. Before you sell anything, before anyone buys anything from you, you gotta figure out how to repeatedly get conversations.”

“And then in those conversations,” I continue, “be earnest in terms of your curiosity versus actually trying to sell something or even position your ideas on someone. Almost be in the market trying to convince someone not to buy your product. And you’re gonna feel their desire to solve a problem.”

I explain the competitive landscape: “People solve problems by either doing it themselves, hiring people, vending it out to a third party, or using software. Software is usually their fourth option. You’ve got to be able to compete against those existing options. You’re not competing against another product. You’re competing against the spreadsheet. You’re competing against the late hours, the insanity around doing things all by yourself.”

Peter absorbs this. “That’s very well said. I like that a lot. It’s inherent curiosity and the desire to learn. The ability to connect to an individual and understand their motivations and understand where they’re coming from. That trumps all else.”

From My Side of the Mic

What gets me about Peter’s story is the clarity of the opportunity he’s identified.

This isn’t a new product category. This isn’t a technological breakthrough. This is a federal lending policy that’s been in place since the 1960s.

But nobody’s made it accessible.

The MLS data is garbage. Mortgage brokers don’t know how to underwrite these deals. First-time buyers don’t know the strategy exists. And property managers are used to either single-family or large multifamily; they don’t specialize in the middle.

So there’s this massive gap between policy intention and market reality. Federal programs designed to help people build wealth through owner-occupied investing aren’t being used because the infrastructure doesn’t exist to support them.

That’s what Series Homes is building: the infrastructure.

Search that actually works. Financing partners who know the rules. Management support for first-time landlords. The entire end-to-end experience. For a tightly defined niche. 

And the economics are stunning. Double the purchasing power with the same income. Cash flow from day one. Near-zero housing costs. Equity building is an appreciating asset. All with minimal money down.

For the 97% of landlords who are mom-and-pop investors, this should be the default strategy. But it’s not because the sequencing failure makes it inaccessible.

What I keep coming back to is Peter’s point about naturally occurring affordable housing. Two-to-four unit properties solve multiple problems simultaneously:

For buyers: wealth building with minimal capital For renters: naturally affordable units (because the owner’s living there, keeping costs down) For neighborhoods: density without displacement For cities: incremental development that doesn’t require massive infrastructure investment

This is the missing middle. And it’s missing not because of zoning (though that’s part of it), but because the financial infrastructure to support it doesn’t exist.

Until now.

Peter’s building that infrastructure. And if he’s successful, he won’t just build a successful company he’ll unlock a wealth-building strategy for millions of Americans who don’t know it exists.

That’s worth the masochism.

Don’t Miss This Conversation

If you’ve ever wondered how regular people build wealth through real estate… if you’re tired of being priced out of single-family homes… if you want to understand the hidden federal lending programs that double your purchasing power…

This conversation with Peter Yoder is essential viewing.

Watch the full episode to hear Peter break down the 75% rule in detail, explain why two-to-four unit properties are built at one percent of the rate they should be, and share exactly how Series Homes is closing the search, financing, and management gaps.

You’ll learn why institutional players can’t compete in this space, how federal lending policy has supported owner-occupied investing since the 1960s, and why this is the best wealth-building strategy most Americans have never heard of.

The episode is live now.

Because here’s the truth: the rental market is 97% mom-and-pop investors. This is how wealth gets built. But only if you know the strategy exists.

Now you do.