Real Investing is a conversation about the move every investor eventually wants to make — from working for their money to getting their money working for them.
The premise
The bank holds your money, pays you a little for the privilege, and lends it back out for a lot more. That is the whole business model, and almost nobody is taught how to get on the other side of it.
Most real estate investors start the same way. Do a deal, make a little money, prove it works. It is honest money and it is hard money — earned with your hands, your weekends and your phone. What almost none of them are told is that there is a second act, and that the people who reach it usually stop owning the problem and start owning the paper.
That is what this show is about. Not the theory of it — the people who did it, and what it actually cost them.
Your host
I am Tim Herriage. About 30 years in this business — roughly $8 billion in transactions and around 2,000 properties acquired, first as the investor writing the check and now as the lender funding the file. I am the founder and CEO of Ternus, a lender built for real estate investors.
I have sat in every seat on this arc. I bought the houses. I was the landlord. I took the eleven o’clock phone call. Then I figured out it is a great deal easier to be the money behind the deal than to be the one swinging at it. I am not interviewing anyone from the outside.
Before any of it I was a Marine Corps intelligence analyst. That is where the habit of sourcing a number before repeating it comes from.
The format
A conversation. Not a briefing and not a segment show — the guest’s story carries the episode. Long enough to get somewhere, short enough to finish on a drive, and edited lightly enough that it feels like being in the room.
This ran as a co-hosted show for 111 episodes across six seasons. It is now hosted by me, built around one question: how did you get to the other side of the trade?
What this show is not
- Not the REI Report. The weekly rundown of rates, spreads and market conditions is a different product, and it lives at reireport.com.
- Not a capital markets show. If you came for the ten-year and the spread, the written report is the place.
- Not a pitch. I run a lending company and I am not going to pretend otherwise, but a conversation that turns into a sales call stops being a conversation.
- Not for beginners only. If you have never done a deal, you are welcome here — but the show is aimed at the person who has done a few and is starting to wonder whether there is a better version of this.
When it publishes
New episode every Wednesday. The written version lands Thursday mornings at reireport.com.
Where I stand
I run a lending company, and when that is relevant to something I am telling you I will say so plainly rather than pretending to be a neutral observer. Nothing here is legal, tax, or investment advice, and anything about loan terms is subject to underwriting and verification. No offer to buy or sell securities is being made through this show or this site.
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