About Robert Heyder

Robert Heyder was a National Champion BMX bike racer at age of 16 and a two-time conference champion wrestler in high school. He was the first member of his family to go to college in a conventional way (outside of college classes while in the military). He holds a degree from the University of Missouri with a dual major in Finance & Real Estate. Trained under Northwestern University’s head of their MBA financial accounting program while in the Executive financial training program at LaSalle Bank in Chicago (Top 3 Investment Bank/Real Estate Finance programs in the country.

Robert Heyder managed a $250 million commercial Real Estate finance portfolio at age 24 for the seventh largest Bank in the world and was the youngest Banking VP in St. Louis at age 25 who Financed / underwrote over $1 Billion in real estate deals. He Invented a financial product at the age of 29 that made the Bank approximately 10% of its net income the first year it was rolled out.

After quitting Banking before turning 30, Robert went full time into Real Estate. He started Core Properties which is still his primary operating company to date. He merged Core Properties with J. Rankin Properties and partnered with Jon Rankin. They have since stated Core Realty (RE Brokerage arm that will complete approx. $60-75 million in deals in 2019).

Robert own nearly $6 million in residential rental properties and 110,000+ square feet of commercial real estate valued at over $14 million.

First big commercial deal: In 2015 we defined the opportunity and in Feb 2016 I bought a $2.7 million real estate secured promissory note from a bank ($4.3 million face – bought at a 37% discount to face) and closed in 14 days. Robert got control of the real estate through foreclose within 30 days. The building was 53% occupied at that time. He leased the vacant space within 90 days, and it’s now 100% leased to a single tenant for 10 years and is worth ~$6 million.

Since buying that commercial real estate asset, he has since purchase over 110,000sf of commercial space that we own and manage. Robert has been successful in raising the necessary capital and have financed the properties locally (none of his stuff is syndicated, and he has put all the deals together).

Core Properties has purchase approximately 175 houses in YTD 2019, which he will wholesale to other investors for rental properties or to rehab-to-sell. Robert also has a coaching program which allows select investors (1-on-1 basis) mentoring and to shadow his systems & process in St. Louis and help them implement a similar system in their market. He also have a few products to help increase lead flow / increase clients for investors and real estate agents.

An interview with Robert Heyder

Are there any areas/levels that you’d like to focus on?

    • Mindset
    • Real Estate
    • Big Picture / Direction
    • The Economy and how to see opportunity now and capitalize on opportunity upon an economic dip.

Backstory? If you had one sentence how would you like others to describe you?

Grew up in lower middle class. Learned to be very entrepreneurial. Through this I’ve learned hard work, hustle and how to make money in unique ways. What I didn’t learn and have been working to break is moving forward with a clear direction / the true value of Opportunity Cost.

How did your journey begin in Real Estate?

    • I saw the entrepreneurial lifestyle with my parents growing up.
    • I was the first in my family to go to traditional college. While there, I really learned about Real Estate investing. The father of one of my college buddies was a real estate investor and developer in Columbia, MO where we went to school. This was the first time I was introduced to someone in that field and I saw first hand the impact it made on his family. I then changed my direction, applied for the business school and got a degree with dual emphasis in Finance and Real Estate).

How does a person become the best at their craft?

    • Hard work – Hard work makes up for a lot of mistakes that you inevitably make. I’ve made a ton of mistakes, but have always had the work ethic to power through to limit exposure and push forward in the right direction.
    • Focus – Not the cliché type… Really, focusing on being the best. Then putting your head down and simply doing. Then, evaluate whats been accomplished and adjust.
    • Get a mentor, to show you’re the direction, answer questions and keep you on the right path.
    • Set clear and attainable goals with millstones.
    • Set Triggers to alert you if you aren’t on the right path.
    • Define what your perfect day looks like, and evaluate the adjust every year.

Leadership qualities and traits?

    • Define your direction / goals and scream them from the rooftops.
    • Be passionate and excited about the direction. You need everyone on your team and associated with you, on board with your vision. Being passionate is the best way for others to on board, no matter how unrealistic the vison appears.
    • Surround yourself with the right people, that see your direction and want to be a part of journey.
    • Help them become their best selves along the way. I do this by having them buy into the vision. They then feel satisfied as we move forward. Also, I am big on building the financial wealth of those around me.
    • Rinse and repeat.

Thoughts on the power of mastermind and coaching?

    • I can’t speak highly enough about it. I’ve had a business coach from the beginning of going full time into my business, and I still meet with her for 4 hours a month. I have then applied additional coaches for specific pieces of the business that need improvement. Example: We have a coach for management and successful workflows (as we’ve scaled from a 1 man show to a 30+ member team). We have coaches on specific sectors of real estate, etc.
    • Surround yourself with others that have your drive and are pushing to be better. Also, surround yourself with people that are more successful than you and have already accomplished what you are working towards. It will drastically cut down on the learning curve and keep you on track.

Personal mission?

    • Business success that allows me to do what I want when I want to do it.
      • I am not the person that wants to work 10-20 hours per week. I want to make individual business channels efficiently and with minimal time needed to allow time to focus on new business channels.
    • Very family oriented and want to make sure my kids are involved.
    • Love to travel and travel with family
    • “Plane evacuation strategy” – What do you do when the oxygen masks drop?… put yours on first, then your loved ones, then others that need help.

What keeps at the top of the game?

    • Internal drive to be great.
    • Internal fear of failure

For me business is like golf. I’m really playing against myself to have the best round. Then, I look at the competition to ensure I’m winning the match. But, I’m not too excited if my competition is shooting a 100 and I win with a 98.

    • Keeping an eye on competition
    • Striving to teach and help others
    • Podcasts and Books
    • Mentors and masterminds.

Relationships that shaped who you are?

    • My grandpa & grandma… hard work, big vision
    • My parents… entrepreneurial, work ethic, push to increase their position in life and keep family close.
    • Mac Lemone and his family
    • Erin Joy – Business coach. She is a lot like Wendy Rhodes in the show Billions.
    • Tom Scott – He let me office with him after I went into business on my own, talked real estate for hours on end, and partnered with me on my first large commercial real estate deal / note purchase.
    • Sean Terry & Kent Clothier…
    • Now, Brett Tanner – taught me “money ball” as it relates to real estate sales. Also, has taught us the importance of not over complicating things as we scale.

Wisdom and principles you follow?

    • When stumped just start taking action, then re-evaluate. Once action is taken, the rest will start to make sense.
    • Take control of your situation and time, or others will do it for you. I still struggle with this but am substantially better than I’ve ever been. Time block what matters.
    • Reverse engineer situations. Start with the Goal in mind and work backwards. If you don’t know what the Goal looks like, then your vision isn’t clear. You will likely not succeed, or it will take much longer than anticipated and ­­has a high probability to fail.
    • Specifically define individual issues in a scenario and solve each issue separately.
    • Self-reflection. – review accomplishments and reaffirm direction.

What do you think about, that really gets you excited?

    • Reflect on current situation and remember the great things that you already have. I often beat myself up for not accomplishing some things faster and forget about what has already been completed.
    • That by simply taking action and moving forward on a goal, that I am 95% ahead of the rest of society.
    • How many people that I have helped and how many more that I can help.
      • I have a bigger goal that I call the Heyder Initiative, which I want to change the life of 1,000,000 people for the better.
      • Do you have a life motto you follow?
      • Motivation- routines that you follow each day?
    • Wake up by 5am, and focus for 1.5 hours before the day starts.
    • Morning Self-reflection on what’s been accomplished, and create a clear view of where I’m going (goal review, steps needed to get there, etc).
    • Morning stretching and light workout.
    • Review and re-draft checklist.