Private Money Lending, House Hacking, and Building Generational Wealth with Asia Denise Duncan

Asia Duncan (00:00)
I would say do it scared. I would say do it. I would say do it scared. Do it without you having all the answers. Do it if you don’t know what lender you’re gonna use. Do it if you don’t know what your credit score is. Do it if you’re not sure what kind of investor you are. Like just let’s start somewhere, right? I believe in doing it scared because some of the lessons that you need, you’re not going to

It takes experience, right? Like and you’re never gonna have experience until you actually do something.

Cody Crabb (02:03)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Cody Crab, and today I’ve got Asia Denise with me. Asia is a private money lender and investor helping other investors fund smarter deals. Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the show. Appreciate it.

Asia Duncan (02:18)
Thanks for having me, Cody. I appreciate you.

Cody Crabb (02:20)
Yeah, so I’d love to get a little bit of background on you and you know, where you came from, how you got in the industry. you mentioned we were chatting a little bit before this and you kind of mentioned, ch I wanna share my story. So definitely wanna hear the story that you’re talking about. and get our audience audience to get to know you a little better.

Asia Duncan (02:36)
So my name is Asia Denise. I’ve been investing in real estate for close to 10 years, specifically here in Vegas, for over a decade. a little bit about me is I love helping people. I believe in building generational wealth and breaking generational curses. And I believe real estate is a pathway to achieve that. Me myself, I personally have been extremely resilient and resourceful, just overcoming

catastrophic loss of millions of dollars. I hate saying that out loud because it makes my stomach hurt even to this day. It’s been a long time. Even yeah, even now. but to be honest, you know, it so when you know better, you do better. And there sometimes I feel like when you, you know, make a lot of money, you sometimes play outside of your lane and get yourselves into investments that you pers per ⁓ aren’t ready for. And ⁓

Cody Crabb (03:11)
Even I even I’m like ⁓

Asia Duncan (03:30)
I’m just here to sh teach people what I know, share my story, and help folks along the way so they don’t make such big mistakes or take big haircuts like I did.

Cody Crabb (03:38)
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Well, we we do love a good opportunity as I’ll call them. we it’s it’s it’s re like sometimes they are expensive lessons to learn, but sometimes you they they really pay off in the long run. so tell us a little bit about where, you know, how you got started in the industry. I mean it’s yeah, I th I think it’s I I always find like I find it interesting how people get into such a specific niche of

Like a part of real estate like I I understand how someone becomes a realtor because you see realtors in just everyday life. But then like your what you do is not exactly something that people kind of see. So how did you find out you could even do this? And then how did you get attracted to it in the first place?

Asia Duncan (04:16)
I actually love that question. So thank you. Because it always allows me to pay homage to my grandmother. My grandmother is almost 90 years old. And when I was a little girl, she used to clean homes, she used to clean houses. And you know, everybody would, you know, she was considered the maid, right? But my grandmother had so much pride and integrity. And like when I tell her, like in New York, the families that she worked for really loved her.

And when I, you know, when I was a little girl, she used to take me everywhere. And when I say take me everywhere, I mean everywhere. So I grew up be my really rich people’s houses were my playground. Like I was playing in mansions and huge houses. And I just thought it was like the coolest thing ever. And I never forget a time where this gentleman, he was smoking a pipe, like like he stuffed tobacco. I think it’s called a pipe, like where you stuffed tobacco in it. Yeah, yeah. Like Sherlock Holmes. He looked like Sherlock Holmes. His name was Mr. Lutton. Shout out to Mr. Lutton.

Cody Crabb (05:05)
And Sherlock Holmes.

Asia Duncan (05:12)
And I said, Mr. Lutton, what do you do for a living? And he said, Wall Street and real Wall Street in real estate. And I had to be like nine or 10 years old, but I will never forget that moment in my life because I said, Mr. Lutton, I’m gonna be a real estate investor. Fast forward to high school, graduated, high honors, did all of the things. And my parents were like, You’re gonna go to college. And I’m like, I don’t hear anybody talking about how they got into real estate in college, right?

So I meet my ex-husband, he’s like, You don’t need college. You just need to, you know, you need some capital. And then we could do this in California. Let’s go. So I we just left. We left New York together. He’s from Brooklyn. I’m from Westchester. We, you know, flew, drove half the way, flew the rest of the way across the country and started our real estate journey. And in the beginning, I didn’t understand that I was like,

you know, it was like a real estate journey. In the beginning, I was like first I was figuring, okay, well, how do I get access to the capital? So I was doing a lot of the groundwork of property management services, virtual assistant service. I mean, I had every job you could possibly think of in California, but it was always about learning how to leverage capital because the biggest thing that I needed to get into real estate was capital. And at the time, I think it was maybe in 2008, during the crash, I found a problem that I could solve. A lot of people were losing their homes in Las Vegas.

I had the cash. They tried, they didn’t want foreclosure. And I became really good at selling the service of hey owner financing. So I you if you would finance it, I’d give you, you know, a a good amount of money up front and pay this off in two to three years, but at least you wouldn’t have this foreclosure on your record. You’d be able to have enough cash to move out and do all the things. And I did that like five times over here.

And that’s how I really started all those years ago. I just been became really resourceful and good at solving problems for other people. And it just kind of like started from there. I mean, there’s a lot of like context in between, because again, I’m talking about 20 years, but that is like my initial how I started. I didn’t start with a FHA loan. I actually just got my first FHA loan in 2020. I started with having some cash and then being able to ask folks like, hey, would you will are you willing to do owner financing for this property?

Cody Crabb (08:12)
That’s really interesting. I think I I’m always fascinated to like like I said before, I’m always fascinated to know people that kind of like they hear like if something calls to you that’s like college is not for me and I don’t know what causes that exactly. Yeah. Not even just the college thing, but just kind of like I’m gonna do my own thing. I’m gonna c I’m gonna make my own money and it’s gonna be my thing. Yeah.

Asia Duncan (08:34)
And

you you d trust me, you have to not sit sorry to cut off your knowledge, but you definitely piss a lot of people off in your family. Cause to this day, my grandma’s 90. I make more more money than a lot of my cousins and my siblings who graduated college. And my grandma’s still like, you know, you should go back for your degree. And I’m just like, Grandma, but you know, you know, in our community, I know education just really is of a high standard because we were deprived of it for so long. So I just know that she really cared about that. And I’m like

Dag, it sometimes now that she’s so old, I’m like, I should just do it so that she can I can do that one thing that she wants it way more than me because this does not, it validates me in no way. But, you know, now that I’m actually in the space that I’m in in this part of real estate, if I did go back to school, the things I’m interested in are more of contract law and just really like contract law is really because I pay a lot of money for lawyers and I find mistakes all the time. I would love to be like a

contract lawyer for real estate. Cause yeah, because I get so upset when it’s like you give me a template contract that you send to everybody and you make them it’s clear it’s a template ’cause you don’t even have the, you know, you don’t even take the time to make sure every single little capital section is changed to my LLC. Like it’s like, come on. And you wanna charge me three fifty an hour? Tiss, tiss, tiss.

Cody Crabb (09:52)
Yeah, exactly well and that’s I think that’s a good point. Like when that that generation was very much like if

The only way to get an education is to go to school. You have to go to a college and get an education. But I think the kind of as we’ve progressed as a society, I think we’re kind of like, well, you we I I absolutely think everybody should get an education, but I just don’t necessarily think that that means you go to school for a degree or something. Like some people just need to learn a certain set of skills and then that’s all they need. They they can do a whole career just based on that. And who are we to say that that’s not

Okay, right. I mean that’s th that’s a huge portion of the of the population that ends up doing something like that. So I agree with you. I I wouldn’t I I don’t say I never say I’m against education. I’m against degrees, like like a higher a higher education degree unless you need it like for a license or something like that. Because of what you just said, yeah.

Asia Duncan (10:46)
Yeah, no, and a lot of stuff, like again, even if I would have went to school, the experience that I have today, like I feel like I have a Harvard education in real estate. I could talk about like haircuts all day and underwriting and leverage and bank issues and and you know, as you grow in real estate and you try to do bigger deals and you try to have access to more capital and you’re trying to recycle more dollars to get into more deals, like it just becomes really

Becomes a numbers thing. So you actually, you know, then you want you need a tax person, you need a finance person, you need someone who actually understands, you know, how to leverage. And a lot of that stuff isn’t even taught in school. So I 100% and like you, like get an education, 100% agree. Sometimes like that is, you know, that is the qualifier to get a lot of people in the door. But me being from New York and me being exposed, I had a really great public school education. And I also was like,

I had I was already in community college while I was in high school. Like I was a really, really high achieving student. So for me I was just like, More of this? For what? Like this is not even what I wanna do. How much more time do I spend doing what I don’t wanna do? And I knew what I wanted to do.

Cody Crabb (11:57)
Yeah. That’s and that’s crazy to me. I mean, knowing that knowing that from such a young age, that must be super beneficial. so let’s say a newer kind of investor is coming with you coming up to you today. You mentioned to me that you you only work with investors. I’d love to hear why that is, but I’d also love to hear what kinds of things are you telling people that that you’re that’s coming across your desk that you’re like, I can’t believe people don’t know this. Like this is surprising to me that more people aren’t aware of this.

Asia Duncan (12:03)
Abraham.

well, I only work with investors predominantly because that’s just really what my specialty is is non-owner occupied like real estate investor loans. I do consult with individuals who are just looking for a capital strategy or, you know, and I do a lot of content creation. So like if you just want to learn how to buy a home and what to look for and how to do some due diligence so you’re not, you know, you’re putting in the best offer, like I create content around that, but that is not my space. Like I’m not running around with you.

all over Vegas trying to find your perfect home. That’s not my passion. but I I want that for you because I do believe that homeownership is the first step to building generational wealth. And I do think that that does need to happen and exist. So sometimes your fur the the only way you can get into real estate is house hacking. And I tell people that that’s a strategy. I wouldn’t be the your lender for that.

But I have friends I can refer. You know, I can refer you to another lender who could get, you know, use your personal information and get you into just a traditional mortgage so that you can start somewhere. I say start. I’m not saying you have to start with me. I’m telling people to start.

Cody Crabb (13:35)
Yeah, I think it there’s a fine line between waiting until you’re ready to do something and procrastinating until you’re ready, because it’s very easy to say, I I just maybe once I do this or maybe but sometimes that is just a tactic that your brain uses to make you go, Right. You know, actually you probably could manage to do this. Is it gonna be perfect? Are you gonna make every right choice? Probably not. But like we said, that’s part of the education part. in my mind. So

Asia Duncan (14:36)
And I think some of the biggest mistakes when you some people don’t go into their first home as a house hack. They try to make their first home their forever home. And that is usually a mistake because you end up paying retail price and you have to wait maybe three to five years for any appreciation. Like when I finally did use a FHA product in 2020, I bought like a older home on the east side that I knew that if I added added value and did the kitchen and did the bathrooms.

I was willing to live below my wit means. I was willing to live in a house that needed a little TLC because it wasn’t the bones were fantastic. It’s it had beautiful structure. And to be honest, older homes have character. These homes nowadays, they there’s no character, right? Might as well be three D printed if it’s not a custom home.

Cody Crabb (15:17)
Well three D printed, yeah.

Asia Duncan (15:21)
So when I noticed that, I was like, okay, well, I’d rather get an older home. I’m I’m you’re talking about a bigger lot, more privacy, more house for what I was paying in Summerlin. Like I was, I was living, you know, I was happy with that because I’m okay with driving, you know, 20 minutes or so to get my kids to a good school, you know? But I think, you know, you have to, I just recommend if you are gonna do a house hack, you go into it as an investor. Don’t go if you if you qualify for five hundred thousand dollars, spend three hundred.

Spend 300 and then put that other, you know, 50 to 100,000 either in the home to add value or let it be something that you could pull out of the home later and then let that HELOC be what you use for an investment. So again, we’re gonna strategize our way into our first investment property, but you have to be able to put your investment hat on to make that happen.

Cody Crabb (16:10)
Yeah. Yeah, and it’s things like that that I feel like a lot of people kind of dive in without maybe having a good idea of of that kind of stuff when they start. But I think I also think it’s the it’s the kind of thing you can go back on and like, you know, it’s it’s not it’s not like you’re setting your future in stone forever. So so I’d love to know, you know, your when you

Asia Duncan (16:28)
Correct.

Cody Crabb (16:32)
What what are some mistakes you s you’re seeing people make in the market today? I mean, people have a pretty negative perception of how the market is right now. I’d love to know if that’s what you think too, but what else are you seeing people say about the market that’s that’s maybe you don’t agree with?

Asia Duncan (16:47)
I just don’t agree with people always saying, ⁓ you know, like whether it’s interest rates being high or any negative talk about the market, I don’t agree with because, you know, as someone who has weathered lots of markets, it truly has to do with underwriting, exit strategy, and what you are trying to do with that home, right? So

I don’t always I don’t look at interest rates in markets because it’s like a car, like or it’s like another investment. I’m actually not keeping this to the light. Like when I like when I use hard money, like I’ll get hard money and then they’ll give me some interest rate, you know, maybe anywhere from twelve to thirteen percent over the course of a year. Well, if I get this done in four months, I’m not paying, you know, 14% or 13%.

It actually, if you understand how it works, it actually reduces it. So if you’re looking at it from that standpoint, it’s like, okay, you can get a home and you may have to start off with a higher interest rate. But once you’re in the home, you can refinance and get a better interest rate later if you’re not in a, you know, if you don’t have a good interest rate right now. So I don’t believe in in that type of stuff, but I do believe you should negotiate. You should ask for concessions, you should, you know, do your underwriting, your due due diligence and find out what the actual appraisal value of the home is. You should

learn what are some of your like wraparound costs so that you, you know, you’re just in a better financial position.

Cody Crabb (18:12)
Hmm. So in a in a world where the market kind of feels uncertain, whether it is or not is is another thing. But what it when it feels uncertain, what’s to you, what separates the investors who are actually making it work still and the ones that kind of just freeze up and maybe don’t do so hot? Like what can you do in a in an uncertain market that sets you apart?

Asia Duncan (18:35)
Research, education, get information and truthfully have relationships because in this market where like, hey, I’ve taken a couple haircuts and I have a lot of my money deployed right now in loans, right? So a lot of my capital is on the streets in loans. So in terms of capital cash, like on deck, I don’t have a whole lot of cash on deck because I have like gap loans out where people are paying their interest rates and they are paying on their loans, but that makes me kind of cash poor, right?

So what I’ve learned in this market is relationships is helpful to be leveraged. Through my relationships with my own lenders and my own partners, I’m able to joint venture. I’m able to say, hey, I found this deal. You put in the cash. I’ll be the boots on the ground. Or hey, there’s this opportunity. You do this part and I’ll do this part. So your network truly is your, you know, like I truly believe there’s like a net worth attached to your network if you build the right relationships. And even with your lender, instead of looking at your lender as a

one and done and you’re now going around trying to shop every lender for the best interest rate. If you truly have a relationship with your lender and you explain to them your situation, like for example, I’ll just, you know, I’ll be vulnerable. Like I had a high risk pregnancy in 2021, which kind of put me out of the game for a few years because, you know, between having to get my body back and having to make sure my baby was okay, that didn’t give me like the last three years are like, Asia, what have you been doing? Well, healing. Healing, I’ve been healing.

Cody Crabb (19:57)
Trying to survive. Yeah.

Asia Duncan (20:00)
And as a woman, it’s like, you know, people just look at it like as that’s not important. No, that’s important. I prioritized my healing. I made sure me and my son were okay. I wasn’t gonna go back into running all over town, trying to find short-term rentals and trying to find deals and trying to find acquisitions because I’m still very old school in that way to where I do prefer like driving for dollars and I do prefer knocking on doors and things like that. But I’m not doing that when I’m not okay, I’m not well. So because I have a relationship with lenders, they were able to look

At my other my experience from four years ago instead of three years ago. That’s a relationship, right? Because most lenders, if I was just going into like a cold situation, they’re gonna be like, okay, well, you don’t have experience in the last three years. I’m like, what? Like, like, you know, first you’ll judge your ego and your pride hits you. You’re like, what? I don’t have you’re are you kidding me? I have a lot of experience. And but then I had to realize that, hey, this person doesn’t know me.

Call someone who knows you, who has a relationship with you, who’s done business with you, who have, who’s had deals with you, who’s made money with you, those people are gonna help you. And when I started calling those people, I got yeses, like you wouldn’t believe, because they understood that I paid back my loans. They understood that I was quick on my delivery and my execution with my, with my flip, my fix and flips, and they understood like where, like what my buy box was. And I understood my buy box. My buy box was always single-family residences, anywhere between like 250 and 350.

So they that was a very low risk buy box when I’ve done that so so many times, right? So you know, you do want to have relationships.

Cody Crabb (22:13)
Hmm. So you mentioned that you know your network is you feel like you’re s you have a strong network. I would I would love to know kind of what strategies have you used to to kind of make that happen. Because it’s one thing to say networking, but it’s another thing to say, what do you mean by networking? You know, I I’d be curious to know what you have done, what strategies you’ve tried.

Asia Duncan (22:33)
to be honest, I consider ⁓ in like how I build my network is I consider myself a servant leader. So how I’ve been able to build my network is being of service to others. So I show up for others, I show up for their events, I share. If I can’t physically attend, I’m posting online or I’m sharing it to other interested entrepreneurs. and I’m always volunteering. Like in addition to what I do in the b business community, I’m also volunteering.

in just the community period. So people see me on social media getting tagged whether it’s we’re feeding the homeless or we’re going to some of the foster care places or, you know, I’m volunteering for there was another company that helped trafficking survivors and women s who recovering from domestic violence. Like I’m outside. Like I don’t consider

anything that I do, I don’t build alone. I build in community with others. But the main way I do that is by being of service to others. And I show up. I show up how I can show up. And it’s not always physical, but it’s definitely like, hey, I let people know I see them. I’ve shared this. Like I love what you’re doing. And I’m your cheerleader online if I can’t be your cheerleader in person. And when I can be your cheerleader in person, I’m gonna I’m gonna be your cheerleader in person.

Cody Crabb (23:43)
Love that. so I mean we we’re kind of creeping up on the end of our our time today, but I’d love to know somebody that is this is this is a question I like to ask sometimes. So let’s say you’re in front of a crowd that’s just all brand new real estate investors. You get one s like thing you can say to this crowd to make to move the needle for the most amount, the largest amount of them. What would you say to the crowd? I’m handing you the mic. Here’s your mic. All right.

Now what would you say to the crowd?

Asia Duncan (24:12)
I would say do it scared. I would say do it. I would say do it scared. Do it without you having all the answers. Do it if you don’t know what lender you’re gonna use. Do it if you don’t know what your credit score is. Do it if you’re not sure what kind of investor you are. Like just let’s start somewhere, right? I believe in doing it scared because some of the lessons that you need, you’re not going to

It takes experience, right? Like and you’re never gonna have experience until you actually do something.

Cody Crabb (24:44)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s the old like, you know, you need experience to get experience thing. But you don’t. you d you t you need experience to you need to have experience to get some other kinds of experience, but a lot of times it’s up to you to just d dig in and and find it out for yourself. So I yeah, I couldn’t agree more with that.

Asia Duncan (25:04)
And to my women, I’m sorry to cut your knowledge off again, but but to women, I feel like a lot of times like we have some weird imposter syndrome. We bury ourselves with shame and guilt and fears. Just do it. Because the truth is.

You don’t want to have resentment for all the things that you didn’t do along the way. And we cannot blame our children forever. They’re gonna go on with their lives and grow up and get married and have families of our own one day. And we wanna know that we build our dream with our children, not in spite of or not, you know, like they, you know, as if they were not a thought. No, I want my kids to watch me build out loud. I enjoy them coming with me to properties. I enjoy them watching me figure stuff out and problem solve. I enjoy them seeing my resilience where, you know.

Sometimes, you know, the vacation is Hawaii, sometimes the vacation is Mexico and guess what? This year it’s Disneyland ’cause mommy’s trying to do a huge multi development deal in Dallas. Like, you know what I’m saying?

Cody Crabb (26:00)
And

d even Disneyland, I’m like, G we’re gonna go to the water park down the street. Right.

Asia Duncan (26:05)
No, but that’s what it that’s what it is. That’s what it’s gonna be this year for us. We’re gonna go to the the the surrounding areas because I’m not spending like five grand, six grand on Disneyland. But trust me, my kids, I asked my son a very important question. I was like, Well, what do you consider a vacation? He said, Getting on a plane and being in a hotel. I said, check, check, okay. And there, you know, check, check, put them on a plane.

Cody Crabb (26:25)
Boise, Idaho. Yeah.

Asia Duncan (26:29)
Yeah. So I just think that sometimes we trap ourselves and there’s a mindset shift that needs to attach with that. And I don’t consider like myself some big mindset or confidence coach, but I do believe that how you kill a lot of the self-doubt is by trying, is about doing stuff, making the effort. You know, and I mean you you’re scared of stuff that you don’t know because you haven’t tried it. So that’s how you kill a lot of that stuff and you build your confidence. You gotta, you gotta do it.

Cody Crabb (26:55)
Love that. Well that is a perfect place to end it. Asia, thanks so much for hopping on today. If people want to get in touch with you or find out more about what you do, where can they do that online?

Asia Duncan (27:04)
Yeah, absolutely. to get in touch with me online, everybody, I’m Asia Denise on all platforms. So I’m officially_asia Denise on Instagram. I’m Asia Denise on Facebook and LinkedIn. and then my company is clclendingsolutions.com. So if you’re every anyone’s interested in real estate loans or any capital strategy sessions or fundraising conversations, I’m here for it.

Cody Crabb (27:26)
Awesome. Well thank you so much. I really appreciate the time you’ve given us today. and listeners, thanks for giving us some time too. If you liked what you heard today, go ahead and give us a like, subscribe, comment, all those things. And don’t forget to follow us so that you don’t miss great more great conversations like this one. thanks so much for hopping on again. I really

Asia Duncan (27:43)
You so

much, Cody. I appreciate you. You have a blessed day.