Real Estate Investing Tips for Young Professionals (with Hayden Duer)

Hayden Duer (00:00)
I would say something that’s rang true for the last few months for sure. I’ve been tested every day in this business as I’m sure all the listeners have as well. It’s something that a lot of people say, but if you don’t quit and your mindset is to go into something and not quit, you won’t lose.

Quentin (01:51)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and y’all know, you probably can say it with me at this point. I am excited. I’m excited to be here. I’m excited to have my guest here. I’m excited for you to get to know a little bit about him like I have. He’s making some amazing strides in the space of Marta family. And man, I’m just excited. I’m excited about him wanting to help professionals realize their dream when it comes to real estate.

And so I’m just excited for you guys to hear his lens, hear his heart, to hear his passion. So please, if you don’t mind, help me welcome Mr. Hayden Duer How are you, sir?

Hayden Duer (02:28)
Good, how you doing, Gwyn?

Quentin (02:30)
Oh man, man, I’m doing great,

I’m excited, nah, no problem, man. I’m excited to get to talk to you, man. Excited to get your lens and your perspective on things. You know, we’ve been talking a little bit and I’m just encouraged about what you do, man. And so I know our listeners are going to get something from what you say, from your perspective. And so if you’re on my man, I am ready to dive in. So let’s start here. know, yeah, my man. So listen, of course people, you know, they may not be familiar with you.

familiar with what you do, familiar with your world. And so if you don’t mind, what is your main focus these days? And if you don’t mind also, tell us what market you’re operating in.

Hayden Duer (03:08)
Yeah, so I own and operate multifamily, me and my partner, and we buy apartment buildings in the Southwest and Midwest. So we have a couple projects, one’s in Tucson, and then another one is in Kansas City, Missouri. And so that’s kind of our main focus is we own and operate, we buy, we work with investors all around the country, and we go out and we purchase these projects. We run the show, we…

So you don’t have to and we send mailbox money, which is always a great thing every quarter.

Quentin (03:45)
Yeah, man, so I was a mailman for 14 years. So that mailbox money, that thing rings a bell right there. And I’m sure people love it. people love receiving that mailbox money, right, man? Absolutely. And I love.

Hayden Duer (03:55)
yeah, always. I getting the

text and then saying, got the wire, we’re happy. ⁓

Quentin (04:05)
Listen, listen, your name is going to go synonymous for riches, brother. I love it. When they get hate, they’re going to get money. I love it, But I love, one of the things you said, you love helping out young professionals, man. And can you tell me a little bit more about the passion that comes behind that?

Hayden Duer (04:12)
There you go.

Yeah, I mean, so I’ve got a lot of friends and family that, you know, I’m 30 myself and I’ve got a lot of friends and family who work hard and I fortunately have the background, my family has been in real estate investing. so I have a lot of knowledge and a lot of background in real estate in general that not too many people do, which I feel it’s almost an obligation to.

to give that knowledge or as much knowledge as I’ve gained, as much knowledge as I’ve kind of been brought up with to people

and help young professionals get ahead in life. so they can afford things like weddings, children, the major expenses. And that’s kind of what started this whole thing with me and my partner and what’s kind of fuels us every day. ⁓

Quentin (05:58)
Yeah, man. I love it, man. I love hearing that. I love hearing that you’re just not thinking about what you know yourself and positioning your life well. Like, hey, I want to help others, right? Like, you know, I want to help people achieve, you know, the American dream. I love you talking about family, marriage. It’s like, I love that. I love to hear that passion in the heart behind what you do. So of course, that’s not always easy, especially easy in this climate, right? So what keeps the machine running smoothly? What keeps you kind of focused and motivated and

organized in a sense, I guess.

Hayden Duer (06:30)
Yeah, that’s an everyday challenge, isn’t it? But that is definitely the helping or getting my voice out and getting our what we want people to know about us out is kind of one thing that I want to focus on because I know that there’s a need for it. I know that specifically, you know, young professionals are they work their they work their fingers to the bone to earn a check.

and we want to put that money to use. just kind of a daily, for me it’s daily that we want to make sure that we’re reaching as many people as we can so that they know that there’s alternatives to your 401k, there’s alternatives to your IRA or just your savings account.

Quentin (07:14)
Yeah, I love it, man. I love it. Putting to use those things is right in front of us, right? And so yeah, I absolutely love that. Okay, so let me ask you this, right? I mean, you you mentioned your age, you’re 30, you long enough to been around, right? Like, I know you know there’s times when things get real, right? Maybe a deal goes sideways or a time when you maybe had to pivot fast. Do you mind sharing maybe one of those experiences with those that’s listening?

Hayden Duer (07:42)
Yeah. Well, I certainly can go back to a story. ⁓ I have a background in property and asset management, so I can go back to a story. know, I personally, I started in property management and, you know, my dad’s an investor and I asked him one day, you know, I want to get into real estate. So where do I start? I started in, he said, start from the ground up. So I started in property management.

I was maintenance leasing all the way to a property manager and managed a big apartment buildings. And so one area in property management that I’ve had to pivot real fast is there was a time when at the very beginning when I was in leasing, was a, I wasn’t,

converting, I wasn’t selling, wasn’t doing a good enough job in leasing the apartments that I needed to. So in that time, I learned everything I could, I kind of hunkered down, learned everything I could about the ins and outs of leasing and of how to make an apartment as desirable as possible and sell that apartment, which has certainly helped me in where I’m at today in owning and operating.

Quentin (08:55)
day.

Hayden Duer (09:00)
But on another hand, it also helped me in my property management career, because I was about a day or two away from being fired. So I everything I could and how to present an apartment and knowing what you need to put into an apartment versus what’s kind of overdoing it. So it’s certainly helped me in my investing career.

Quentin (09:56)
Absolutely, no man. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for your humor, right? Thank you for your vulnerability, man. I love that story, man. And I have no doubt, man, that you’re just not dabbling, right? You’re looking to be in this thing for the long term. And so I appreciate stories. We always like to appreciate overcoming stories, right? That people know, no matter what situation you may be in now, we have to push through and overcome.

And so I appreciate you sharing because these are the stories that kind of make us successful that we can climb up on and catapult our self-offer. So I appreciate that, man. So let me ask you this. What are your main focus? Like, what are your main focus on solving or scaling next? Like, what’s the next real goal for you,

Hayden Duer (10:31)
Absolutely.

Providing great opportunities, better opportunities than the last. ⁓ I want to make sure that we, in addition to partnering with great companies and great teams, we want to make sure that we’re putting our investors’ capital and putting our knowledge to the best use. And so that’s kind of where we’re at right now. We’re focusing on that next opportunity and the next project. if we can’t…

take it down ourselves. want to work with a team that certainly can because we know that the value that we can provide to a project is necessary and needed.

Quentin (11:17)
Absolutely. I love that man.

I love the fact that you look in the partner up with great teams.

You pulling on all your resources, all the experience of yourself, your partner and your family.

And it makes me think, you know, you know, we got a lot of people and they’re listening either they’re early in their journey. They’re looking to level up. And I think it had benefited from them hearing this.

When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what has made the biggest difference for you?

Hayden Duer (11:48)
For me, it’s at bats. It’s at bats and it’s my own knowledge. So I am a big, big YouTube university guy. I’ve been on YouTube for 10 years in terms of just watching as many videos and learning as much as I possibly can. I have a lot of mentors who don’t know who I am. And so I spend a lot of time studying and reading, as you can see.

And just making sure that I have the knowledge or have a base knowledge and going into these networking events, trying to learn more and not just trying to take things from people or ask things of people or sell to people. Just going in with a fresh mindset of, I’ve got this knowledge. I want this knowledge and I want to meet as many people as I can and getting the at bats. And it’s, you know,

crafting your networking style takes time and it’s definitely something that as the networking events and the months and the years that go on, you learn and you get better at. So just getting the at-bats and also gaining your knowledge as you get the at-bats.

Quentin (12:55)
Absolutely. I love it, man. And you’re true. Like, I hear a through the through line with you. You’re true to what you’re saying because one of the very first questions I asked you that people don’t even know about until now, your answer was education, right? You’re very education forward. So you just said, I’m listening. I’m YouTube University. I’m with you, brother. I have people I call mentors. They don’t know who the hell I am. But I say, but.

Hayden Duer (13:21)
Yeah.

Quentin (13:24)
You know, but they have, they have mentored me. I have followed what they’ve said. I’ve found great success in what they’re saying.

And so listen, what I want to ask you now is, you know, we have, we have audience out here and they’re from all different walks, right? They’re from the beginning, some of them 35 years, but I still know from you, from your perspective,

there is something that they can learn from, right? So I just want to ask you, is there any kind of encouragement, any kind of inspiration, anything you’ve kind of been thinking about, anything that’s on your art that maybe you can share with the audience,

something you’ve been thinking about that you feel like people may need to hear. I just want to open up the floor to see if you have anything you want to share.

Hayden Duer (14:07)
Yeah, I would say something that’s rang true for the last few months for sure. I’ve been tested every day in this business as I’m sure all the listeners have as well. It’s something that a lot of people say, but if you don’t quit and your mindset is to go into something and not quit, you won’t lose.

If you outlast all of the pain and the struggle, because there’s going to be…

a lot of learning experiences, gonna be a lot of failure, but if you don’t quit and you go into whatever it is that you’re doing, whether it’s real estate or whatever career you’re going down or running a marathon, if your goal is to do it and you’re not gonna stop until you do, you’ll do it. And I firmly believe that. Yeah, that’s a big motivating factor and something that, I might be naive, right?

But every single day I tell myself that if you don’t quit, you’re gonna do it. so, and I’ve seen a lot, I’ve seen it happen and seen the success stories and seen too much evidence of that over my career to where that is something that is very true.

Quentin (15:57)
man, I thank you for that. And that rings true, man. You truly don’t lose until you quit, right? As long as you’re in the fight, you know, it’s not a loss. And I love you alluded to this, number six, cause I heard it like this too. That takes a certain amount of delusion to really push forward and be the best that you can be, right? Like we look at people from all walks of sports, you know, just different successful people, you know.

Sometimes you have every obstacle and odds and maybe sometimes even data points saying, hey, you can’t do this. Like, what are you doing? Like stop. But it takes a certain level of delusion for you to really believe like, no, this is going to work. And so what I like about, again, you is that you’re always educating yourself, right? And so it becomes delusion until you find that one little piece that’d be like, ⁓ when you connect this with that.

Ooh, there’s a spark that makes sense. And so that’s why, you know, we keep, we keep moving forward. We never quit because right now you may not have that key ingredient, but that key ingredient, that tool, that person, that mentor, that partner may come along with it makes all the sense in the world and you’re the missing piece to their missing piece. And then when you spark it, there’s an ignition, right?

Hayden Duer (17:12)
Exactly. And that’s where the networking piece comes into play. That’s where the education piece comes into play. And then just getting the reps every day, whether it’s with networking or with your business. And something’s going to happen. If you keep making the right, if you keep doing busy work and not doing the important work, it might take a lot longer. But if you’re doing the work to push the business forward or push whatever you’re doing forward every single day, something’s going to happen. Something’s got to give, right? Your hard work.

will pay off.

Quentin (17:42)
I wanted to thank you for bringing that word rep back because that’s what you talked about, getting your reps in. weight is heavy when you first lift it. But when you continue to lift that weight, you realize, I can take on more weight. And it becomes heavy when you first lift it. But then you’re like, oh, wait a minute, I can take on more weight. And so I’m glad you mentioned and put in our minds that thought of reps. You got to continue to reps. It may be heavy now.

tell you to rest because eventually it gets easier. Eventually it does. So yeah, absolutely. So listen, Hayden, man, I appreciate you, sir. Listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate with you or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way that they can reach out to you,

Hayden Duer (18:12)
That’s a perfect analogy.

I would say either on my Instagram or LinkedIn. It’s my first and last name, Hayden Duer at Hayden Duer on Instagram and LinkedIn is my name, Hayden Duer. Or they can go to our website and learn more about what we’re doing. And that’s duerurakamigroup.com

Quentin (18:45)
I love it, man. I love it. And if y’all, some of y’all like me, y’all might be listening, y’all might listen on Spotify too. That Duer is spelled D-U-E-R. I know all our YouTube people, can see it, but those who just listening in audio space, that’s D-U-E-R. All right. Mr. Hayden Duer, there he is everyone. Listen, sir, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story. I definitely appreciate your perspective, man. Please keep doing what you’re doing, I know it’s in you. I know you’re not gonna stop.

But just let me just say to you, I just want to say it, man, don’t stop. Keep doing what you’re doing. We need people like you that want to educate people to have, they have the integrity that has the honesty. so again, sir, thank you for building a real business the right way. I appreciate you, sir.

Hayden Duer (19:29)
Absolutely,

Quinn. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate the conversation. It’s great.

Quentin (19:34)
Absolutely, Now listen, for those who’s tuning in, if you have found value in this, you have to make sure you subscribe. I’m telling you, you do not want to miss the conversations that we are having. And today is just one of those days where the conversation was smooth, it was nice, and you found it valuable. And I promise you, I believe more is to come, just like that. So make sure that you’re subscribed and tuned in. Hey, and again, thank you, sir. And to everyone else, we will see you on the next episode.