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Show Summary
In this conversation, Paul Durante shares his unique perspective as a finance-first real estate agent, emphasizing the importance of understanding the financial implications of real estate transactions. He discusses the current market landscape, the challenges faced by agents, and the significance of resilience and adaptability in achieving success. Paul also highlights the critical role of homeownership in wealth building and the need for transparency in financial discussions with clients.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Paul Durante (00:00)
So being resilient and learning to hear no, and hear no a lot, and hear no more than you’re probably gonna hear yes. So to keep at it and be excited and driven by the wins.Um, and being okay with the losses and, and I always look at losses and say, really not. And, people call me crazy and, and I call it confidence, not an ego, but if someone chooses not to do business with me and Michael, that’s their loss. Right? I mean, that that’s they, they just, they just lost out. mean, they have the idea of the, the laugh, the, the, the, the breadth of knowledge that they just kind of walked away from. Okay.
Quentin Edmonds (02:11)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. And you know what I’m gonna say. I’m excited to be here today. It’s another fantastic day. And I have another fantastic guest. You know what I say. I love when I have people, when I can look through their lens and see things through their eyes, through their story. And today is gonna be no different. And so this gentleman comes with a ton of experience.finance first guy, he uses Linder experience to help him now, you know, as an agent connecting with people. I’m going him tell you all about it, but I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Mr. Paul. I said, I’m getting intimidated by the last name, Mr. Paul Durante, Mr. Paul Durante. How you doing today, sir?
Paul Durante (03:01)
I’m doing great. Thank you. Thanks for having me. ⁓Quentin Edmonds (03:04)
Absolutely man. Thank you so much for being here and listen man. I kind of want to dive in I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days Mr. Paul if you want to give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got into what you’re doing We love origin stories and then we tell it tell us what part of the world you’re in man What markets are operating in so miss Paul sir you have the floor?Paul Durante (03:24)
Absolutely. Well, Quentin again, thanks for having me today. Super excited to be here with you and your audience. ⁓ and happy Friday to you. ⁓ with that all being said, so my story, my origin story, I would say this when I was a little kid, I was like most, I probably wanted to be, you know, a copper fireman. ⁓ but, but that didn’t happen. And, ⁓ at some way, shape or form, you know, in the early two thousands, I wound up in the lending, business, specifically retail mortgages. and that’s how I got my start in, in, in, ⁓ in real estate.So I was a ⁓ retail mortgage originator and learned the business. From that I graduated to the wholesale side of the business where I helped brokers and bankers structure their business and built a huge ⁓ business from that side. ⁓ And I stayed in lending for the better part of the last 20 plus years, structured over a billion dollars in loans. So we’ve got a really unique perspective on the real estate side and the real estate business.
on what deals work, what deals don’t work, and what really matters. ⁓ And what that brought me to is really a gap in the business. I’ve worked with so many good agents, but there’s really, I would say, some agents that kind of don’t get the whole business, the big piece of the business that makes it up. And that’s the financial impact of it. ⁓ So many folks look at homes, and they see this pretty home, and like, how can we get into this home? And they just kind of just forget about a lot of it. And a lot of it being, let’s say, the capital.
⁓ expenditure as to what it takes to get into a home and whether they should liquidate finances and things like that. So I looked at it as an opportunity to, bring my experience in the finance side and then bring it to the finance, to the, the, the agent side, the other side of the table,
as I like to call it. So, ⁓ I coined myself the finance first real estate agent. And, so I bring the, the financial impact first to it. So I’m really passionate, ⁓ about finances and making sure folks make the right financial decision.
Whether they’re purchasing, you know, a $5 million home, you know, or a $300,000 starter home in their market. I’m really, you know, passionate about them making the right financial decision in doing that. So I bring that finance first approach to the transaction.
Quentin Edmonds (06:22)
I love it, man. Finance first. I love that coin phrase that you have for yourself. I love how, you know, you walk yourself up to what you’re doing now, the journey, you know, to where you are now. And thank you for letting us in on the journey. Speaking of journeys, I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning no matter what we go through in life, every destination, you pick up something that kind of makes usWho we are today, right? Fortify us who we are today. And so, I would love to know during your journey in real estate, what has the destiny, what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you resilience, discipline, know, just to name a few. Like what has it taught you about you?
Paul Durante (07:03)
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say this and the journey in real estate, would say, and ⁓ it started even way before that. ⁓ And you’ll see where I’m going with that is that I was a young competitive athlete. ⁓ And then, you know, I was, I was like most of always say I had dreams, you know, of being a professional athlete. And what, know, like 90 plus percent of the kids, it didn’t happen. So I had to find something else that I was passionate about and it was sales.So with that and what I’ve applied is that athletic competitiveness to business. And what it mean by that is taking those, you’re not always gonna win in business, you’re not always gonna win in sales.
being resilient and learning to hear no, and hear no a lot, and hear no more than you’re probably gonna hear yes. So to keep at it and be excited and driven by the wins.
Um, and being okay with the losses and, and I always look at losses and say, really not. And, people call me crazy and, and I call it confidence, not an ego, but if someone chooses not to do business with me and Michael, that’s their loss. Right? I mean, that that’s they, they just, they just lost out. mean, they have the idea of the, the laugh, the, the, the, the breadth of knowledge that they just kind of walked away from. Okay.
⁓ I’ll bring that to somebody else. It’s going to benefit somebody else. So I’ve been really resilient like that. I have lot of confidence in myself and my abilities. So ⁓ that’s been the biggest thing is that you’re going to hear no more likely than you’re going to hear yes. And to keep moving forward ⁓ in life, ⁓ I felt that’s helped me be very successful.
Quentin Edmonds (08:47)
Absolutely, man. I love it. And I’m with you and a arrogance is confidence like if you don’t trust you who else gonna trust you if you if you don’t know the goods you bring to the table who else is gonna trust that you bring your goods to the table, right? So you gotta have that confidence. Yeah, you know Absolutely, but wife told me a saying it’s from a fitness coach. The name is coach coach Lynch Coach Lynch has a stand. He says if you lie to yourselfthen you truly have no one else you can trust. Right? If you lie to yourself and truly you have no one else you can trust. And so I love it. You know, this ain’t about arrogance. This is about confidence. I have to tell myself how good I am that women I told somebody else, I ain’t lying to them. This is who I am. This is what I have groomed myself to be. This is the discipline I put in place. This is the tensionality that I put in place. And so I hear you, man. I hear you loud and clear,
Paul Durante (09:39)
Yeah, I talk to talk and walk the walk. I mean, it’s not one of those things where, ⁓ you know, I’m talking it and not living it. ⁓ I track everything. and right. Where, where does that confidence comes from? It comes from my discipline. ⁓ you know, I’m, one of those where I, I’ll go to my Apple watch. I’ll show you the activities I’ve done this week. I’ll show you what I do to take care of myself. You know, I’m willing to put that out there. ⁓ and I probably don’t talk about it, talk about it enough.but that’s where it comes from. I’m putting in the work and putting the time in. So absolutely.
Quentin Edmonds (10:46)
Yeah, no, and I’m glad we’re talking about it because one of the things that I try to highlight to the best of my ability is the people that listen I want them to know we all have a superpower We all have something that we can dig down inside and pull out Especially if we disciplined it and we trained it if we’ve been intentional about it And so I love it how you say listen I can go to my watch I’ll show you the work that I put in you can’t go to a refrigerator and take out what you did not put in and so I just want people to know like heyPut that stuff in you to discipline the consistency so you can pull it out when you need to because we all have a superpower that we can lean on. It’s just finding it and discipline.
Paul Durante (11:24)
Absolutely. Yeah. And what I would say is this too, and you know, you watch a lot of stuff online, a lot of people see the end results of work online, and and they’ll use the term that that person he or she got lucky. But what they don’t see is all the work and that they’ve done behind the scenes to get there. ⁓ They miss out on that journey. And it’s a painful one. So, you know, there’s great, great quotes out there. And you talk about, you know, you see Kobe Bryant out there.⁓ lot of his old quotes and I always say like, what happened to Kobe, right? Like I’m probably getting off off, off topic here for a second. You forgot about Kobe, but nonetheless, actually watch a lot of Kobe out there and, ⁓ he’ll talk about it all the time. And he’s like, Hey, listen, if you wake up at, you know, four in the morning, get to the gym at five, train for two hours, right. Then come home, have some breakfast training again. And then basically train three times a day versus somebody training too. And you stack that up over a year. No one’s going to catch up to
Right? So it’s like anything else. It’s repetition. So the doors that you’re knocking on today, it’s not about the wind today. It’s that you’ve put the work in. And when you play the numbers and play the odds and then also recognize that the odds, you’re just putting the odds more in your favor. So that, and like I said, the more no’s that you’re going to hear, the know that you hear your closer to a yes. So as much as we all love the instant gratification, we’d love to get it. You know, the reality is if you have success too early,
you’re probably getting the wrong perspective of life and sales in general.
Quentin Edmonds (12:57)
Yeah, I love it, man. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation. That’s when luck is when opportunity meets preparation. And I believe that consistency beats intensity any day. So consistently being consistent, not necessarily being intense. can be intense, but definitely make sure you’re being consistent because that consistent discipline is going to put who carry you on. And so us talking about not getting, you know, too much on a shiny object, right?Yes. Talking about the road to success. want to ask you and you’re building to be successful. Have you bumped up against adversity? And if you have, how did that adversity look within your particular situation?
Paul Durante (13:39)
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve had adversity at every, every step of my career. ⁓ so when I first started in, in the lending side of the business and I learned the business from the ground up and working with individuals and credit and things like that, and then I decided to make the jump to the wholesale side of the business. you know, folks thought I was nuts there, ⁓ because I didn’t have a broker base, didn’t have a banker base. I actually had one friend who happened to own a mortgage broker shop and that was it.⁓ and I went into what was then, you know, termed a saturated market and folks had said to me, wow, you’re crazy. You’re nuts. I can’t believe you’re doing this. And I looked at it again as opportunity and said to myself, wait, I’m like on the role that I had left, I had to know multiple products over a dozen different banks and lending. Like now I only have to know one and I only have to know one. And then I also didn’t have to now go find mortgage bankers and brokers, but I get to bring this knowledge that I have to them.
and help them learn my one product. So I look at it and say, well, I don’t want to know one product now, and I just have to get clients. But to your point that you said before, as far as knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, the strength of mind has always been doing stuff like this, getting in front of people and talking to people and being able to articulate myself. So I said, well, I’m not using that completely today, but now I get to use that. So I get to use that and I take that with my knowledge that I currently have.
So you can see I’m pretty tactical and methodical in my mind the way I think.
⁓ But then it is now I have to apply this plan to do that. So yeah, so did that, that was super successful there. And then fast forward to let’s say where we are now, I’m doing basically the same thing. I’m taking the years of knowledge that I have and have gathered, you know, working with individuals and families, you know, putting together these financial plans to purchase a home and now taking it and helping them buy that home.
So yes, I will help you find the beautiful home. I’ll help you sell your beautiful home. But I’m also then going to be able to look at this. And if you’re a seller, I’m going to be able to articulate to you, should you accept this offer? Should you now? You know, I have some stories out there. There’s some good ones where I’ve heard some people actually accept a contingent offers, a contingent offer in this market. There’s no inventory.
⁓ And a contingent offer, I’ve heard of one recently, a contingent offer where a client has to sell multiple properties in order to buy one property. Yeah, and as an agent, how would you accept that? How did you articulate that to your seller to actually accept that offer from that buyer? ⁓ And the only way I would do that is obviously would be a full no financing contingency cash deal.
And either they’re buying the property or they’re not but to accept a contingent offer in this market You just you did you sell a wrong? ⁓ For sure and ⁓ yes, there’s a lot of that still going on out there So I’m a big, education person and laying the facts out right at the end of the day ⁓ I’m an advisor first but ultimately people are gonna do there could be some motivation behind the scenes that maybe You know, you have a good relationship with your clients, but maybe folks don’t want to share with you
and something that’s more important to them other than this transaction. But I’m a big believer in being transparent, giving people the facts, and they can make a decision based off of those facts.
Quentin Edmonds (17:49)
I love that man. love that. people the choice by giving them facts, give them what they need to know and let them make the choice. Absolutely love that. And that’s to me, that signifies your integrity and your honesty. And I absolutely love that.Paul Durante (18:02)
I wantyou to me all the time and say, know, what would you do? And, and, and, and, you know, we all get that. Well, what would I, well, it, it, it’s different. It’s not a matter of what I would do. What I may do, I’m going look at it from my lens. It may not be, that may be best for me, but I don’t know if that’s going be best for you. So, so here’s the cards. Here’s the way it looks based on what you told me. What do you think is best for you? Yeah.
Quentin Edmonds (18:24)
I love that man. I love that. So Mr. Paul, I heard you. You want to help people. You definitely want to help people get into the homes that they want. So I want you to put it cleanly. What are your next real goals? Like what are you looking to solve for scale next?Paul Durante (18:38)
Yeah, so to scale basically looking to you know, we’re in it’s it’s January. It’s cold and a lot of folks and there’s been a freeze right so and and the markets been frozen. So you have a lot of folks who are probably sitting out there and you know cracking champagne New Year’s Eve at saying hey, they’re going to have some sort of financial goal come the New Year and whether that’s the buy a home or sell a home or potentially do both. And I think some of the weather is probably put that on ice a little bit.But I think there’s a lot of excitement coming into this year. A lot of folks have probably been, you know, looking at the real estate market and saying that it’s been, you know, locked up for the last couple of years for a multitude of reasons. And a lot of people have left the business because of that. So I look at 2026 as a huge opportunity to help folks and let them know that homeownership is still paramount in building your wealth. ⁓ You know, there’s again, there’s a lot of like the cult misinformation out there.
about buying a home and why you should quote unquote rent forever. ⁓ You know, I don’t recommend ⁓ renting forever. I think it’s, ⁓ you know, but buying a home is certainly if you’re looking at your pyramid of wealth, ⁓ it is definitely part of that pyramid. And it’s your first step of getting into a home. The lot of misnomers out there as far as how much you need to get into a down payment to get into a home. So I will always say, you know, let’s have that conversation. Let’s align.
what your capital structure is and find the right property for you. And I think that’s what makes me unique. I’m able to have those conversations with folks and be able to say, hey, here’s the capital that you have. Here’s the home you’re looking to buy. Let’s align these two goals and then maybe have some money left over after the fact that we could do something else with it as well.
Quentin Edmonds (20:24)
I love it. love it. Well, Mr. Paul, listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can I get in contact with you,Paul Durante (20:36)
Absolutely Quentin. So very reachable and always like to connect and talk about finance, talk about real estate and I could be found on Instagram @paulduranteofficial, at Facebook on @paulduranteofficial, TikTok @paulduranteofficial, YouTube @paulduranteofficial as well.Quentin Edmonds (20:54)
Love it. it. Well, Mr. Paul, man, let me say three things to you. First, thank you for your time. Because of course, you know, time is a precious commodity, right? Thank you for your story, man. Thank you for being transparent. Thank you for your integrity and your honesty. Greatly appreciate that. And lastly, man, thank you for your perspective, your mindset in bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you,Paul Durante (21:17)
My pleasure, thank you.Quentin Edmonds (21:18)
Absolutely. So listen y’all heard mr paul you you got the nuggets you got the value Looking to show notes connect with him But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people Just like mr paul. So sir. Thank you again and everyone else. You’ll have a fantastic day
