How Market Data Helps Investors Avoid Bad Real Estate Deals

Patrick Duffy (00:00)
maybe that’s why I couldn’t get a gig. They’re like, it’s too truthful. You know, he’s gonna tell clients that this doesn’t work, and their inflation, you know, assumptions for rent or for prices are kinda like too excessive and things like that. So I

I could say that I’m the truth-telling consultant, but I’m trying to protect people from themselves. Like in the last financial crisis, a company got really lucky. They wanted to be the next Toll Brothers. And then they were too aggressive. And then they came back later and they’re like, you know, things aren’t going well. Can we do a a study on prices? And and they couldn’t even do that. So, you know, they did so well on the first project, but actually I think you got lucky. And they don’t want to hear that. You know, and then the timing was wrong.

You know, they couldn’t compete at that same level. So things like that, you know, be curious. be open to the downside. You never know. Like when I when I buy investment property for rental, I look at the rents and I’m like, well, what if rents decline by 20%?

Quentin (02:25)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest who we’re gonna learn from. You know, that data analyst, he’s a consultant, he’s a writer. So I I know this conversation probably could go a couple different ways, but what we’re gonna do, we’re just gonna allow the conversation to evolve. That way we can learn.

From this gentleman experience and we can apply the knowledge and experience to our life. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Patrick Duffy. Mr. Patrick, how you doing today, sir?

Patrick Duffy (03:00)
I’m good, Quentin. Thank you for having me on today. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to this.

Quentin (03:03)
Absolutely,

man. Glad that you’re here, sir. And listen, I I’m gonna type. I like to dive right in. So look, I want you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a bit of a origin story, kind of how you got to the place where you are, and then tell them what part of the world you’re in, because people love to know where people are geographically. So what you’re up to, your origin story and where you are. Mr. Patrick, sir, you have the floor.

Patrick Duffy (03:26)
Okay. Well I’ll start with where I’m at. I’m calling in from ⁓ lovely Long Beach, California today.

Quentin (03:31)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Duffy (03:32)
⁓ which is about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. If you don’t, but you probably heard about it. We’re becoming the big music city now with the new amphitheater. So everyone’s very excited. ⁓ I got into real estate in college. I’m a big fan of internships. I had two internships. One was with the concert promoter, and that was really fun, but the industry is kind of crazy. It wasn’t very corporate as much at the time, so it was more of a wildcat kind of industry. ⁓ and then my second one was with an undruck

an industrial and office real estate developer, the third largest on the West Coast. Very successful. I worked for this the president of the division, ⁓ learned a lot. And one of the consultants that we hired would would do market studies. And I subsequently got a job with them.

It was a company called Market Profiles in San Diego. And I jumped into the residential side of things and I was there for quite a long time. And then I relocated up to the Los Angeles area. And I was recruited by a competitor for a while that’s now become a Zonda, which was just acquired by CoStar. So you see all this consolidation in the industry, not just with apartment companies like Equity Residential.

Quentin (04:31)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Patrick Duffy (04:40)
⁓ and but also Co-Star and Zonda, big home builders. we do some work for Tri-Point, a division of Tri-Point, and they had an acquisition. And over time, when I was with what became Zonda, I became a spokesperson and be kind of got ⁓ a really good education in getting press. I mean, f over 50 times in the LA Times, you befriended a reporter that taught me how to get quoted, be pithy, I would picture things.

And that education helped me pivot more into the PR side of things. So in addition to doing the data stuff, I also do PR. And I just ⁓ did an announcement yesterday on LinkedIn, director of public relations for a company called Kovac Marketing. ⁓

Down in Newport Beach, just south of me in Long Beach. And I think what I do is I bring in a lot of data. So if I’m pitching a reporter or an editor, I’m gonna pull in data on new home sales or the housing market, mortgage rates. Like what’s the so what? Am I saying if you don’t have a good so what?

Quentin (05:26)
Mm.

Patrick Duffy (05:36)
An editor reporter is not going to cover it. And when I was writing for US News and World Report for three years as a subject matter expert and also kind of a journalist, I would get tons of pitches. And I really learn what’s a good pitch and what isn’t a good pitch. So, you know, and the one good pitch is something that is specific to me, you know, and that’s the one that would if I think you’re sending out to a hundred people and you’re just doing a mail merge, that’s less likely. So I keep those lessons in mind.

Quentin (05:49)
Mm.

Patrick Duffy (06:01)
when I’m pitching. I don’t want it s and I don’t do that. I don’t do the mail words. I try to tailor every pitch because that’s a human being on the other side of that. And in the media landscaping, they’re under tremendous pressure. So that’s also important to keep in mind.

Quentin (07:01)
Yeah, yeah. I love it, man. Thank you. Thank you for sharing how you got into the real estate space, talking about some of the data analysis, PR space that you’re in. And so, you know, you’ve been, you know, doing some some shifting and some movement, some ebbs and flow flows. And so I often have I I make this statement, Mr. Patrick, that destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning as we go through life, we are building momentum to the people that we are now. We’re finding our niche, we’re finding what we love, we’re finding our passion.

So out of your journey to where you are now, what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience? Like what has the journey taught you about you?

Patrick Duffy (07:39)
Well, when I got when during the last great financial crisis, you know, I along with ever a lot of other consultants got laid off and it was hard to find another gig do what I was doing. And so I started my own company. And that has morphed into a a life of freedom that I don’t want to give up. Even if you offered me more money, if I got a commute or I gotta move, no thanks. Because I travel, I’m a big traveler.

Quentin (07:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Patrick Duffy (08:02)
So I was ⁓ earlier this year on a midnight zoom call with a client from Cambodia. And so I had to like arrange that a really good Wi-Fi, really nice room. ⁓ the connection was great.

Quentin (08:09)
Hmm.

Patrick Duffy (08:15)
And I have a friend that lives and moved to Bangkok and went and visited, and he also works remotely. So I sort of learned from him how to do that. So it’s just tremendous freedom. ⁓ what also helped is that ⁓ when I had that W-2 income was either to invest, you know, I have rental properties. So that brings in stability. So I can, I’m lucky enough that I can actually live off pretty much my rental income.

Quentin (08:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Duffy (08:39)
That covers

my expense it covers the mortgages, the taxes, even my food, things like that. So I’m very fortunate. So everything else is gravy, you know, and a after taxes, I can invest that, I’m saving that. I got a financial advisor that I just talked to last week. So and it amazed me to say yes and no to different things that are so I do a lot of volunteer work too on PR. I work with local nonprofits doing their PR and their outreach. And I’m leading a panel for a performance next week and things like that. So it’s that freedom.

Quentin (08:47)
Yes.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Patrick Duffy (09:08)
So so that gift of you know, a little ages and probably at the point became a gift because then I can do anything. I can do everything. And Kovac, I’ve been working with them for 10 years, but I was mostly just working on press releases. And there’s an opportunity, hey, we like how you think and your outreach and the ideas you come up with. Why don’t you join us as a client?

in addition to my other clients, but they have, you know, all these clients across the country. And so now we’re looking at what we can assist them with. Because people are confused. There’s so much going on out there. What does this mean? How do you cut through the noise?

Quentin (09:41)
Yeah, yeah. I love it, sir. Well, what’s next for you business wise? What are you looking to solve at scale next? What are the next real goals for you?

Patrick Duffy (09:48)
Well, one thing I’m trying to do is automate market studies. And so this is where AI comes in. And I know other people are doing this, but how can I take my knowledge and teach AI to do a market study that would then be reviewed by a human, you know, because they can hallucinate. ⁓ and I’ve been doing a deep dive into AI, and one of the reasons that models hallucinate is they don’t have enough data and they want to please you. You know, you get ChatGPT, you’re the best ever. And it’s gonna feed you information to make you happy that might not be correct.

So that’s why you need the human factor in. But I wanna be able to do something where

Any any land use can do a market study and and pull from data stuff. And one of the things on the commercial side, like, hey, what if I want to open a pet store in Kansas City, Missouri? Okay. How would you pull that? What’s the demand? What are the demographics? What’s the competition? What’s in the future supply? You know, where should you do this? Like everything together to give you kind of that sniff test. Like, is this like a pipe dream? I remember I had a friend who was an engineer that opened a pet shop. I’m like,

Okay, you have no experience in retail, you know, this is sort of a hope and a dream, but who knows? You know, and I don’t know what happened. I think he did open it. And I think I bought something from it back in the day when I had pets. So, but that’s an example because if you go to a broker, and this came from I had a friend that inherited a property outside of Atlanta, a furniture store, and she wanted to know if she could just keep it or sell it. And she contacted a broker that wanted $10,000 just to give her an answer. And I’m like, well, that’s I don’t know what.

Quentin (11:12)
Hmm.

Patrick Duffy (11:13)
And so that gave me now she eventually found a broker that was willing to work with her, you know, and cause I was helping sourcing her for local market cu research companies that specialize in that area. And she says, I found someone. But that’s where I got the idea. I’m like, you know what? There’s something in here that you can automate a study because the data’s out there. Now it can be expensive, you know, like CoStar is really expensive and they have very specific ideas on licensing their data.

And now they have Zonda. So you see all this consolidation and the data is going to be really good, but it might be expensive. So those are all sorts of things you have to have a through and find out what is the business model for this.

Quentin (12:25)
I love it. So data data seems to be very, very important in what you do. So what what what is it about your your your brain, your mind that really kind of gravitates to data? ‘Cause it seemed like you’re a very data driven person. So tell me what what is it about data that really draws you?

Patrick Duffy (12:42)
⁓ it provides answers, you know. It I’ll have conversations with people like ⁓ I have a a family member that’s saying, I read that all these people are leaving in LA and we don’t need to build new housing. I’m like, well, we do because it’s pent up. And then we had the same conversation recently, and he asked the same question. I’m like, is he just not listening? Or he doesn’t remember, he doesn’t like the idea. And there are a lot of ideas ⁓ that people present that are not based in fact, it’s gut.

You know, I have a brother, it says he and my stepdad and my stepbrother are all vibe voters, which to me means you don’t want to do the hard work of investigating policy, which I do. Does the policy work or not? I’ve worked on ten political campaigns. That’s another data driven thing. ⁓ is this policy gonna work or not? Has it worked elsewhere?

You know, what are how do we tweak this? And a lot of people don’t want to have those conversations. So what I try to do with the data so you don’t start falling asleep in the first 10 seconds is to tell a story. So on my LinkedIn page, I I built myself as a storytelling economist and writer. And when I was working for US News, I asked my someone called me a journalist. I’m like, Well, I’m a subject matter expert. She says, Well, you’re both. You’re a double threat. Because I would interview people. I would call like the

Quentin (13:32)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Patrick Duffy (13:55)
⁓ the top people that were in charge of a sector for a major ⁓ commercial real estate company like ⁓ CRE ⁓ Jones like South and I get these great interviews like tell me what’s going on with retail tell me what’s going on with data centers the big thing now tell me what’s going on with industrial because I may not have the stories that they have I have the data but what’s the stuff beyond the data and that would really help the story. So it’s not just the data it’s the story behind the data.

Quentin (14:23)
Love it. I love it. So listen, everyone that comes on, I get their unique perspective on this word. So I want to get yours. The word relationship. Relationship within business. What is your unique respect perspective? What comes to mind when you hear the word relationship?

Patrick Duffy (14:38)
just critical. I mean, human beings are such social animals. And and I think how I react today. Like I was telling my mom a few months, I said, I haven’t had a major fight with anyone in like years. Just maybe you’re overdue. My okay. And to a point, if you don’t fight, like there are couples that say they never fight, well, that means they’re maybe harboring stuff that they’re not willing to discuss and that blows up. I don’t do that. ⁓ did I do it when I was younger? Yeah, you learn. So the relationships are just critical.

For for everything. friendships, I mean, there’s this national loneliness epidemic. there’s a book coming out about the importance of ritual because phones, we’re not doing rituals. I’ve been jumping into local community here in Long Beach to get involved, ⁓ to boost my own rituals. So I go out and I run into people, you know, because I like doing that. So ⁓ I I have friends I’ve known, God, since 10th grade.

Something like that that I’m still in touch with. So, you know, if I meet new people, it’s always interesting. Are are they how are they in their friendship groups? They long-term friends. How are the relationships with their family? And they’re like, well, everyone’s a, you know what? They might be the problem, you know, or not. You don’t know. But that’s something I look at. And then, of course, in business relationships, again, yeah, I’d like to joke around and be kind of casual sometimes with my clients. It doesn’t have to be.

super formal all the time. One of my clients actually, I found out I got the gig from a regular retainer client that builds affordable housing. He’s a friend of my brother’s and he lives pretty close to me. So I’ve gotten him to know him and his family and kind of, you know, find out more things about the company. So that’s a critical relationship. So every time my brother’s in town, we go over there and we have dinner and smoke cigars and have whiskey and and and that’s such a critical part of maintaining those relationships.

And then for Kovac, I said, you know what? Let’s do a an in-person meeting. Because someone who works in East Texas remotely was in town. So we had our first lunch where the four of us met since I’ve been working with them. And we want to do that quarterly. We get to know them. So and I thought, why am I always the one that’s that’s pushing for this? I’m like, you know why? Because it works. You know, it

I’m the one that always calls people to do stuff. If I wait, the phone doesn’t ring. And part of me is like, why am I because that’s just my role, I guess. You know, you’re not gonna have a solid friendship group unless you don’t put in the effort. And the same is true for your clients. You know, stay in touch with them.

Quentin (16:53)
Yeah, yeah.

I love it, Mr. Patrick. Listen, I I want to give you the opportunity to leave one last thought with our audience. So is there any other words of inspiration, education, or motivation you want to leave? Or did you come in with maybe a thought in your mind that you wanted to make sure our viewers know? Kind of want to open up the floor so you can go ahead and land that point if you have something like that that you came in with.

Patrick Duffy (17:55)
Well, one word that comes up to me is curiosity. So when I travel, I’m, you know, there are two types of travelers. There’s a type that everything does all the research, and the other one just says, ⁓ hey, where are we going?

Quentin (17:57)
Hmm

Patrick Duffy (18:07)
So and so I’m always curious about stuff. And I try to be like an idea generator for my clients. What about this? What about that? I had a client that just promoted someone to director of development, really big job. And so I’m like, okay, we need to get you into the best under 40 in your category. We need to do a press release. So, in a way, I’m trying to help her in her career, you know, and get that stuff out there. So

But the other part of curiosity about everything, what does this mean? And I probably drone on too much for some people because I’m always asking. And a friend of mine says, why do you keep asking questions about some things in the past? I said, because I haven’t closed the loop yet.

Patrick Duffy (18:44)
so just that just the curiosity, and that’s why I get people to reach out to me, because a lot of people do market studies, especially for ⁓ you know, they get pressure to come into a certain point because a lot of these major companies are factories. They’re pumping out stuff, they want the clients to be happy.

And I’m the first, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t get a gig. They’re like, it’s too truthful. You know, he’s gonna tell clients that this doesn’t work, and their inflation, you know, assumptions for rent or for prices are kinda like too excessive and things like that. So I

I could say that I’m the truth-telling consultant, but I’m trying to protect people from themselves. Like in the last financial crisis, a company got really lucky. They wanted to be the next Toll Brothers. And then they were too aggressive. And then they came back later and they’re like, you know, things aren’t going well. Can we do a a study on prices? And and they couldn’t even do that. So, you know, they did so well on the first project, but actually I think you got lucky. And they don’t want to hear that. You know, and then the timing was wrong.

You know, they couldn’t compete at that same level. So things like that, you know, be curious. be open to the downside. You never know. Like when I when I buy investment property for rental, I look at the rents and I’m like, well, what if rents decline by 20%?

Which is what they did in the great financial crisis, and I didn’t lose anything. You know, I had four properties that I was able to keep through that. So ⁓ be honest with yourself, be curious. ⁓

And reach out to me if you’re looking for ⁓ an opinion on something or you have ideas for PR to get out there, ⁓ how to use AI in your business, all sorts of things.

Quentin (20:15)
Well, I resonate deeply with that word curious. That’s my word for twenty twenty six is curious. I’m curious about everything. So thank you for bringing that to the conversation for sure. So Mr. Patrick, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Patrick Duffy (20:32)
Well you could follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn. ⁓ look for MetroIntelligence. we also have a website, metrointel.com, and all the contact information is there as well.

Quentin (20:42)
Absolutely. Well, listen, let me say three things to you, sir. Thank you for your time. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for giving us some of your time. Secondly, I’m with you. I put a premium on stories. So thank you for telling us your story. thank you for the gift of your authenticity, the gift of your integrity. I believe seeds have a way of planting seeds. I say seeds planting seeds. Stories have a way of planting seeds.

And we may never see the full growth, but the seed is still there and they can take root at any given time. So thank you for coming on and planting seeds with your story. And lastly, sir, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on today.

Patrick Duffy (21:25)
Yes, I kinda wanna hear your story at some point too, of how you came to this point.

Quentin (21:28)
man, we might get diamond in that at some point for

sure. Yes, sir. ⁓ But listen, man, I again I appreciate you, sir, so much. And so listen, y’all heard Mr. Patrick. His information is in the show notes. Get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, because I’m promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Patrick. So, sir, I say thank you again and everyone else. Y’all have a fantastic day.