Barbara Corcoran is renowned for her heart-over-head investment decisions—and for bucking conventional finance wisdom, including proudly not saving a “ dime” of her substantial wealth . But she must be doing something right, considering she’s worth about $100 million , and she revealed some keys to her success in real estate.

Corcoran appeared on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast with her son Tom Higgins to describe two methods she says make up her “golden rule” of real estate investing: putting down 20% on an investment property and having tenants of that property paying for the mortgage.

This is the method Corcoran herself used when she borrowed $1,000 from her then-boyfriend to launch her real estate career. After failing at 22 jobs, she said goodbye to her waitressing

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