Tim Herriage: About thirty years ago, I got out of the, high school, had to graduate out of summer school because I had attendance issues, divorce, just all this stuff in my family. And I joined the Marine Corps, and my family just doesn't, like we don't come from money. We don't have money. In the last twenty eight years since getting out of high school, I mean, I've single handedly changed the trajectory of my entire man. I'm grateful for it.
I love it. I just I love owning things and building things. My kids will have to work, but I could make it where they don't have to. I like to help people. Like, I was talking to one of the guys the other day.
He plays for the, Bronco. I mean, you know, anything I can do to help these young people, I I I love it. And if I get to make money along the way, win a winner chicken dinner.
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Disruptors. Today, we have my good buddy, Tim Harridge with Ternus, and Tim flew in from Dallas, Texas to talk about how he's been a part of $7,000,000,000 in real estate transactions. It's a mind blowing number. Now, guys, I'm on a mission to create a 100 millionaires.
The information on the show alone is enough to help become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you will you will become one. And if you get value out of today's show, please share this episode with a friend. That way we can all grow together. You ready?
Tim: Ready.
Steve: Alright. So I'm super excited here because there are some just eye popping numbers here. So when you were here two years ago, because we looked at it, it was February '23. You said you had done 1,500 transactions or you bought 1,500 houses, and you done you've been involved in a billion dollars in real estate. Yeah.
Now it's more than 2,000 houses, $7,000,000,000 in real estate transactions. And as a, you know, something as a side hustle or perhaps you started a whole lending company. Right? So let's start with the houses. 1,500 to 2,000.
500 houses in two years, that's a lot of houses.
Tim: So I went back and looked, and I was probably low last time. I was actually closer to 1,700.
Steve: Okay. So only 300 houses.
Tim: I've recently been investing with a lot of partners. Mhmm. And, I love the way you open the show talking about, you know, we wanna make all these millionaires. And, you know, our last I have five core values at Turnus. We'll talk about them later, but the last one's service.
And when I explained that to my team, I always tell them we make millionaire. Yeah. And it's just I am on this mission to help people, and I don't have time, but I have money. Mhmm. And I started learning really how to leverage my money into more time.
So I joint venture with investors. I invest in people's offerings. I don't know if I bought the bought the commercial buildings yet before last time. Couple thousand multifamily units. Mhmm.
I really just started spreading out and enabling other people, and, the multiplication of that has been just amazing. Yeah. And then, you know, I'm wearing the Turner shirt, but I'm also still part of the RCN Capital experience. And, you know, we did we'll do 2,000,000,000 this year. Mhmm.
We did, you know, more than one and a half, like, 1.6 last year.
Steve: That was RCN or Eternis?
Tim: RCN. Okay. Eternis is like, we're still on training wheels, baby. Like, we're we're we're we're getting there. But, no, I mean, it's just spreading out and not trying to do everything on my own.
I've actually picked up more power, if that makes any sense.
Steve: It makes total sense. I mean, I even look at the, your Facebook post every once in a while. I was like, yeah. I know we just had a pretty good month. You know, it was, like, a 100,000,000 plus in loans.
Like like, what? Like, a 100,000,000 plus in loans is just again, these are eye popping numbers. Right? These are not like these are numbers typically if someone comes in, that alone is enough more than enough, right, to be on the show. Now you're talking, like, billions.
Tim: So I opened Ternus January 4. Actually a little over a year now. Yeah. And yesterday, actually, we claw we did our we closed our one hundred and fiftieth loan. Mhmm.
And that 150 loans was over 25,000,000 of my own money that we in kinda twelve months, because we didn't make our first loan until February, and we made two Mhmm. Last year. And then we did, one loan in March. Mhmm. We were just, you know Slow start.
Slow start. And then, now we'll close March 30, '35 loans. And by the end of the year, we'll be doing a 150, 200 a month.
Steve: That's incredible. So going back before we jump into
Tim: the no. No. No. You're good.
Steve: Between we talk about the the volume. So, you said partnership. So is this basically, like, something to reduce taxes, or is it just to have assets? What is the reason? Or and you're saying you're you're investing a lot of these other funds.
Tim: Yeah. So I haven't had to pay income tax in a very long time personally, and the next many million dollars that I earn personally is will be tax free. Mhmm. That's a big part. Yeah.
The other is I think all real estate investors at our core, you know, we won't make money, build passive income, and create legacy or long term wealth. Yeah. And I kinda like when I drill it down, those are the three most common things, and I'm still that same guy. I mean, I I love to make money. Mhmm.
I'm I I love to save money, like the Chick fil A app and the Whataburger app. I mean, like, I just love them. Like, and I get alert. Like, you get a free sandwich. I'm like, yeah.
You know? And can't get my kids to use them, but I love it. Like, I just I love to make money. I love passive income. Mhmm.
And I'm, you know, like, about thirty years ago, I got out of the, high school, had to graduate out of summer school because I had attendance issues, divorce, just all this stuff in my bank.
Steve: Picture you with attend attendance issues.
Tim: Yeah. Well, my mom had no control over me. Right? And, yeah, I joined the marine corps, and my family just doesn't like, we don't come from money. We don't have money.
In the last twenty four years, twenty eight years, since getting out of high school, I mean, I've single handedly changed the trajectory of my entire family. Yeah. And I'm grateful for it. And I love it. I just I love owning things and building things.
And, like, my kids will have to work, but I could make it where they don't have to.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim: So that's where it all comes from. I just I loved it. And then, like, to help veterans or, I've got a lot of 24 and 25 year olds in my life because my oldest son's friends that I coached, even, you know, a couple of them are actually in the NFL. Like, I like to help people. Like, I was talking to one of the guys the other day.
He plays for the, Broncos. I mean, you know, anything I can do to help these young people, I I love it. And if I get to make money along the way, winner winner chicken dinner.
Steve: And then 6,000,000,000 in in loans approximately, right, since you were last on. So
Tim: Well, that's not true either because I I just don't think I did enough re counting before I came last time. I just kinda threw some things out. I was like, I don't know. Billion and 1,500. Because we did 3,000,000,000 at b two r in the first three years.
Mhmm. And that was 2014, '15, and '16.
Steve: Yeah.
Tim: So I don't know. I mean,
Steve: And we talked about it because if you guys wanna go back. Right? Like, there's another episode we did with Tim two years ago where we talked a lot about your story about how you got to, where you were, then all these transactions. And there's a lot we're gonna uncover today about everything else you had going on. So then let's talk about RCN and then Ternus because that's a pretty big jump.
I mean, you could have been totally comfortable and complacent. Like, no one would've, like, said, oh, Tim's just settling. Right? Working at the board or the board.
Tim: Director of a multibillion dollar origination platform.
Steve: Yeah. Why doesn't he have bigger goals?
Tim: Yeah.
Steve: Right? So, like, you're having success there. It's blowing up. I mean, like I said, I I enjoy reading your Facebook post. Like, hey.
We just did this thing. Hey. We just did that. I was like, man, those are crazy numbers. Why would you do something more than what you already had done?
Tim: The secret to my success is I am an eager learner.
Steve: Mhmm.
Tim: Like, I can never know enough about anything. Yeah.
Steve: I
Tim: go to these masterminds, and I don't miss a single presentation. Like, I I just I wanna learn and hear what people are doing, and it's and I don't come from the Internet age. Right? Like, when I got into the business, I had to go to the Areo meetup Ria thing on the first Thursday of the month, and they had a discussion board that, like, never worked online. Mhmm.
But, I mean, you had to go there to learn or, like, get any information. There was no BiggerPockets. I mean, I remember when they started BiggerPockets. So, I'm just an eager learner. And so what happened was I left here in that February, and then in December, in March, two years ago, I was gonna go to the best ever conference in Salt Lake City.
And it happened to be here in my son's spring break. And I just told my wife, I said, look, I'll drive the kids and the dogs up and you just fly up, and we'll go stay in Park City. And I'll just drive from Park City to Salt Lake City every day for the conference, and you guys can stay up in the mountains and ski. So we do that, and I got so this let's see. He's 15 now, so he'd have been 13 then.
I load and I tell him he can bring a friend, so he brings three. You know, you got kids. Right?
Steve: I got a 13 year old. Yes.
Tim: Yeah. So and they're all in the car with me, and, you know, they're on their TikTok and their Instagram and all that. And coach Tim comes out like, no. We're gonna listen to books. My son's like, oh, god.
I'm like, yeah. Shut up. And it had been five or six years since I first read Start with Why Mhmm. By Simon Sinek. And I started listening to it, and it just spoke to me so much that lending, which is my kind of claim to fame, it's what I'm most known for.
It's become commoditized. Ten years ago when I started b two r, there was no institutional or Wall Street money available for us. Yeah. Now it's all that's available, and the product's just gotten detached from the customer's needs. And and I just started thinking, like, wouldn't it be great if, like, people really wanted to do business with your lending company?
And, like, what would it's kind of the planning exercise. What would have to be true for that to happen? Right? And I just started thinking. I was like, okay.
And Simon talks about, you know, the the golden circle and the three core reasons people do things. Yeah. And I just that's when I I was like, okay. Well, let's define our avatar like our our customer. And, well, every single investor I've ever met, and I've met tens of thousands of them, want to make money.
They say they want cash flow or passive income, and they say they want to build long term wealth or like or create a legacy for their kids. I was like, okay, that's the core motivator. That's the that's those are the three pillars. But I looked up I looked up, threefold finance and three way capital and all this other stuff, and, I was just getting into Chatt GPT. Mhmm.
Steve: So I
Tim: was like, what's Latin for threefold?
Steve: Oh, so your early adopter.
Tim: Yeah. And Ternus popped up, And it's it was a guy's last name. I guess it's still his last name. But he had the domain, and offered, like, $3. He said no.
$5. He said no. $8. He said no. $10.
He said no. I was like, I'm gonna find a different name. I don't even have a company yet. Mhmm. Couple weeks later, they called back.
They're like, yeah. If you can do 15,000 this week, we'll take it. Mhmm. So I I charge that on the AmEx. Don't even have a company.
My wife gets the text from the AmEx, and she's like, what the hell did you just spend $15,000 at GoDaddy on? I'm like, you remember the idea I told you, Turnus? I got the URL. She goes, $15,000. Like, yeah.
You know? So anyway, that was the I settled on the name. The the so the logo is three triangles. Each triangle, you know, it forms a triangle, but the three triangles equal to three pillars and turn us as three folds. So it's very vision driven.
Mhmm. Right?
Steve: I love it. It's very intentional.
Tim: And then Your
Steve: mission is your logo.
Tim: Exactly. Yeah. The name is the mission, is the vision. And then I thought, okay. Well, how are we gonna give these things?
How does our company become about that? Not what we do, but who we are. Right? Coke is the real thing. Right?
Nike is just do it. Mhmm. Apple is whatever the hell they are. They make you feel really good, and you can't get off their software. It's like, how do you get that feeling out of a lender?
Because the first thing anybody asks any lender ever is, what's your rate? Mhmm. But we've been conditioned to do that. It's we don't know how to ask, do you close on time?
Steve: Mhmm.
Tim: We don't know how to ask, do you lie to me or yank me around? Like, we don't know how to ask these things. And so that's where Turner's came up with, and I was like, I need to make it where the customers can own the company. Mhmm. And then one day, I'll try to get to where I'm paying dividends, and then they make money by doing deals with us, then they make cash flow through dividends from high interest loans, then they make money by share value growth and building a big company and all these billions and billions of dollars in the space that Wall Street gets, f that will take it back from Wall Street and give it to Main Street.
That was the whole idea and I'll take it to Jeff Tash at RCN Capital. He's like, no. No. Because RCN is more of a wholesale lender. RCN is actually moving to a place where they're not really working with direct customers as much.
They're more about enabling hard money brokers or private money brokers and correspondent lenders and private lending services. Very different direction. Yeah. And so I was like, no. Come on, Jeff.
Do it with me. No. He's like, but what are you gonna do? I was like, I I just I've done a lot, Steve. And some of it, like, has worked out really well, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't, like, start with a really clear vision, mission, or purpose.
It was more like, let's start an event. And then I've never had something I couldn't get out of my mind. I mean, by by by the time May rolls around, I'm waking up at 4AM and, like, I gotta take notes about what and I'm in there chat GPT in a way. So, yeah, just a couple months go by. I can't get it out of my head.
I own a $15,000 last name. I I tell Jeff, I'm like, look. I gotta go do this full time, but I don't wanna give up on, like, the equity and the dream of RCN. So we worked it out where I'm a senior corporate advisor. I still attend the c suite meetings, the manager meetings.
I introduce brokers to them. We're we're beta testing a lot of the things RCN does on my dumb dumb self. Right? Like, it's like closing docs. Well, I need closing docs and every time I add a new state, I need closing docs for that state.
Well, RCN already does that. Can I pay you to do it? They're like, maybe, right? Servicing loans. I've got 10,000,000 of my own money out in loans.
Well, I'm servicing, right? Collecting the payments, sending the draws and all that. Can you do that for me? And they're like, Yeah. Okay, great.
We'll pay you to service it, right? Thirty year rental loans. You got to offer them, but I don't want to fund them myself. So we fund them through our so there's a lot of alignment and everything that is part of that corporate vision, they need to do with me. And then once they figure out how to do it with me, they'll do it with someone else.
Right? So, it's great. I mean, that company is doing fantastic. We've got a fantastic team. But when Jeff, you know, didn't, you know, just the timing wasn't right and the situation wasn't right, I went and had lunch with a mentor friend of mine.
Life, I think, once you've been doing as long as I have, it starts to just turn into this series of people you've met. Mhmm. Right? And I go to lunch, and the guy is really big in the marketing space. And the entire intention is to kind of get his advice because he is a mentor.
But then also, like, I think I'm gonna let them, you know, get them to be my my marketing company, brand positioning, all that. We're having lunch. And he goes, where are you gonna get the capital from the loans? I said, well, it'd be my money, but then we'll, you know, probably do a debt fund, that kind of thing. He goes, we want a big slice of the debt fund.
He goes, and we want some of the opco. I was like, alright. Next thing you know, like, go to another meeting with them. I called Jennifer afterwards. I'm like, I think we have partners.
It wasn't the intention, but, so they helped me get it started. And, through being in the boardroom Mhmm. I had met Tom and Bill, my new partners, and we just became Tom Rowan and Tom Cochburn and Bill Rowan. Mhmm. And we were just friends.
Right? Never transactional. Never even talked, but they love the vision. They're like, let us know how we can support you. Let us know how you support you.
It got to where I was ready to do this crowdfunding thing that I'm doing, and my other partner, he's kind of a high net worth individual, ultra high net and and the crowdfunding just scared him. The the liability of it was just more than they Mhmm. Could tolerate. So I was like, look. I mean, I'm committed.
This is like the vision. It's been the vision since the first minute I came up with it. I gotta go with it. So I bought them out in December. All of them?
Yeah. Okay. Well well, all the first partners. Mhmm. But the way I did it is I text Tom and Bill.
I'm like, hey, guys. Y'all said that you would wanna get in one day if it was available. Here's what I'm doing. Do you wanna get involved? And we did almost an 8 figure arrangement Mhmm.
Over text message in two weeks. So much that my chief strategy officer goes, wait a second. They they didn't wanna see the business plan? Like, there's no model? It's just no, man.
They just they love the vision, and that's where they wanna take it. And so we did that. And then the first thing we did was get our audits done, form, we were an LLC. We had to move it over into a c corp so that we could actually sell shares in the company. Mhmm.
And I found a tech company called DealMaker that would do the tech. And within sixty seven days, we had it live, and now we are officially selling 10% of the company to our customers, our friends. I mean, because we're raising $5,000,000, and I could go raise 5,000,000 in ten minutes on Wall Street. Mhmm. I don't want Wall Street.
Yeah. I want it to be the people watching this. I want it to be, like, the customers. I want it to be my friends and my people is what I refer to all of us investors as because then I can have a shareholder meeting, and my shareholders can hold me accountable and keep make sure we don't sell out to the big money guys. Right?
And we keep making products and services that the customer really needs.
Steve: Right.
Tim: And, by the way, it helps to have thousands of partners going around the country telling everybody about your company.
Steve: I got a vested interest.
Tim: And
Steve: so, like and you're saying this right there's a theory, which I can definitely attest to this theory because, I don't know if you know this, but, let's see. Two years ago, Jack Bosch and I, we invested into a bank. Right? So the Scottsdale Community Bank, they were getting off the ground. They were just a little bit shy of all the funding that they needed.
So Jack and I came in for the last 1% of what they needed. So, you know, he and I split 1% of the bank. And I can tell you, all banking goes through Scottsdale Community Bank. Right. Right?
There's no Chase. There's no there's there's no other bank. Everything goes through Scottsdale Community Bank. Right? We're looking at getting HELOC right now.
We're you know, talked about it last week. We're gonna be doing a hard money company. Hey. Let's go get a HELOC so we can do our own hard money stuff. It's crazy.
Like, once you own something, it's yours. You wanna protect it. You want to let other people know about it. So, yeah, I think your vision is so, like, on point.
Tim: Well, in our industry is, like, weird, man. Like, you gotta watch out, like, when people even recommend something in these Facebook forums because I watch people. They're like, oh, call someone so at such and such company. And I'll call them and be like, you ever done business with them? No, man.
But she was buying drinks the other day at happy hour.
Steve: Oh, yeah.
Tim: And I was just like, yeah, man. But, like, someone's gonna go act on that referral.
Steve: Oh, yeah.
Tim: And you don't know anything about, like I
Steve: mean, that's the reason why RESPA exists. Right? Right.
Tim: Which we're not regulated about.
Steve: We're yeah. I mean, this is different. But, you know, for those of you who don't know RESPA, I mean, it's like real estate, something
Tim: Settlement procedures act.
Steve: There you go. You know. Yeah. Right? So, like, realtors and title companies and mortgage companies, they can't go collude.
Not to say there's a money changing hands, but per the law and CFPB, they cannot, get paid or compensated for referring business. Alright? So, yeah, who knows? Like, oh, yeah. Use this guy because he bought me drinks last week.
It's not a good reason to use somebody.
Tim: I mean, do not go a million dollars into debt with someone because someone bought them a Coke. You know? It's just so yeah. I mean and if they'll do that with a company that they're not even invested in Mhmm. What will they do with a company they're vested in?
They they have a a a vested interest. And I just can't wait for my sales guys to have to deal with, well, look. I'm a shareholder. Because, you know, our people, like, they're just they're not gonna they're gonna throw that around. Like, I'm a shareholder.
Steve: I'll be honest with you. I've thrown that around. I was like, this is what I get. Right?
Tim: I mean, you go in and, like, no. I understand he logs her hard, but I'm a shareholder. Yeah.
Steve: Well, I can say for sure when I had the title company, before, like, hey. I'm not trying to throw my weight around here, but, like, I do own 49% of this company. Can I get, like, a little bit better service here?
Tim: It's, you know, and speaking of that, though, so I actually realized I had gone a year without doing a loan yet with Ternus Mhmm. Because we hadn't done any long term rental financing, and, I'm just not in the hard money borrowing space. And I was just like, man, how how how stupid is that? Mhmm. So now I'm doing a refi that we locked yesterday, for six and a half percent interest, and now I'm becoming the customer.
And the crazy thing is my wife handles most of that. She keeps copying me all these emails like, what are they doing? Why this? Why are they asking for that? Can't they do it for me?
You know, it's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. They could, but then, like, our other 50 customers that need help this week wouldn't get any help, honey. I mean
Steve: Yeah. She wants that front of the line pass. So alright. I I wanna get back to turn Ternus because this is huge. Right?
But there's a couple other things. You and I, so we met through IMN. Yep. Right? Because at IMN, you met introduced me to Jeff.
Like, you legit like, alright. Who are you? What do you do? Okay. Hang tight.
And you went to go find Jeff and brought him to me. He's like, Jeff, you need to meet Steve, and, like, you, cultivated that relationship. Right?
Tim: Jeff who?
Steve: Was it not Jeff? What's, who's the RCN?
Tim: Oh, Tesh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Never mind.
Steve: So you made that connection happen. And then since then, we get to hang out at
Tim: Family Mastermind. Right?
Steve: And we get to hang out at Boardroom, which I joined in September.
Tim: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: Kent Clothier's group. And since joining that group, I didn't realize you're a big freaking deal. They love you at boardroom. So you wanna talk about, like, you know, your involvement, like, what what, you started there, how you created this, what's the word I'm looking for, fandom, perhaps? Big changes are coming.
Changes you've already heard about, that AI is going to change the world. But you've already heard all that. I've been hearing it too. And I mostly dismissed it, that AI cannot affect the sales industry because sales is the one place that human interaction cannot be replaced. But I was looking at it all wrong.
I was thinking about how AI could not replace the salesperson. I didn't take the time to think about how I could use AI to be better than my competition. And so I got serious, started looking at how AI give my team a competitive advantage over everybody else, such an unfair advantage that eventually the competition won't have a chance. And I started sharing it with some of my clients, and now they're using it too. And I feel kinda bad for their competition, but only a little bit because they're going to eat their competition's lunch.
And if you want to know what my clients and I are up to, you can join us. I'm doing a Zoom meeting. We're only letting a 100 people in. I want to keep this intimate. If there was a setting for only 25 to 30 people, that would be even better.
Will I see you there? Do you want to dominate the competition? If that sounds like you, register for the call here. Disruptors.com/ai.
Tim: So it's kinda funny. In February, I really missed the annual conventions for HomeVestors. I'm a person I get energy from being with people. And so I launched a company called the REI Expo. Mhmm.
And my our first one was January '11, and I had 200 something people there. The next one was January '12. We had 400 something people there. Then I got talked into doing one in Houston. We had 200 people there.
Then by the time the twenty thirteen one rolled around in Dallas, I had 800 people there. Then I decided to take it national, and I go to Chicago, Baltimore, and, Orange County. 200 people in each one of the first ones. Oh, okay. This is too common.
Well, then the fourth REI expo was at the Gaylord Texan. We had 1,800 people.
Steve: Wow. Okay.
Tim: And so this was I touched a lot of people, and it's it's kinda funny. Like, you're talking, and people are like, oh my god. That's right. That was your thing. Like, Justin Colby was telling me yesterday in Florida that he actually had come to one of the REI expos.
And just now after being becoming really good friends over the last two years, just now put it together that that was my thing. But it was through that thing that I met Blackstone because I ended up through that thing. I got put on a stage at the five star conference. And by being on the stage at the five star conference, I met Blackstone. By meeting Blackstone, my life and and vision and everything changed.
So I actually never even heard of you until Jamie Wooley, Worley. Yeah. I saw on Facebook one day she's, you know, just did the disruptors podcast. This was probably twenty eighteen, 2019. I don't even know.
Steve: '18 or '19. Yeah.
Tim: And I was like, who's that? So I started watching your stuff. I didn't know you, but, like, I kinda felt like I was like, man, this is cool. And I even called one time, and they said, you know, well, you gotta fill out this form. And I'm like, I'm Tim Harridge.
My name fell out your form. But I never was really big in social media. Mhmm. And and and but I just helped a lot of people do business. And, you know, in these masterminds and in these rooms, I tend to get awards because I'm very passionate about helping people avoid the pitfalls that I've had to experience.
Mhmm. You know, in o eight and o nine, I had a lot of really good friends that, like, lost everything, including their marriages and their family, and some of them committed suicide. Like, it was a bad time. Yeah. It was.
And, you know, we did a 143 flips the year before and had 38 vacant rentals when the market crashed. I mean, vacant flips. I mean, we lost millions. My wife had to go be an REO broker just to pay the mortgage on our, you know, $1,500,000 house we were living in because before that, we were printing money. Mhmm.
So I don't know, man. I I I this business has done so much for me. Mhmm. And I just I'm really passionate about helping people and helping them hopefully avoid I mean, there's some I've I've been through some dark nights as a as a business owner.
Steve: Well and you recently shared something on Facebook. So, I mean, if you guys aren't following following him on Facebook, you recently shared something, I thought was wild, which is that, for the first time, you fell victim to wire fraud. Yes. Talk about the lessons there.
Tim: $638,000 missing on Friday morning, March 7. Yeah. One of those day one of those days you don't forget.
Steve: Yeah. I imagine it's pretty hard to forget.
Tim: Actually, that was the fourteenth. March 14. We got lucky. It was a transactional funding loan. So we do transactional funding.
Steve: Which, by the way, feels like the safest loan you can do. Right. Doesn't get any safer than transactional funding.
Tim: Right. Yeah. Unless the title company is fake. Right. Because if the money is never supposed to leave the title company and the title company is fake, money leaves the title company.
But we got lucky since it was a transactional funding loan, we were expecting it back within forty eight hours. Mhmm. And that Friday morning, I was like, hey. Did we get the money back? I need to put it back in the money market account before the weekend because I'm all about, like, earning money.
Steve: And you really are, chief.
Tim: I am. Well, then I was on a call with my, with Accruity. They're they do, the books for all Eternis entities, and we're going over the equity transactions and the balance sheet and the p and l and the February statements and all that. It's kind of like my CFO time. And I get a text from my chief operating officer, like, whatever you're doing, I need to speak to you now.
I'm like,
Steve: oh god. That's not a great text.
Tim: No. So I was like, hang on, guys, and I put them on mute on Teams. And I call Lacey. I said, what's up? She goes, the money's gone.
Kind of a vague statement. Yeah. But I knew exactly what the hell she was talking, right, because I just followed up with her. I go, okay. Hang on.
I'm gonna unmute Casey. I'm gonna say, guys, wire fraud. Gotta go. I hit end. I didn't bother with anything else.
Yeah. And so we use a service called Funding Shield that their entire thing is we pay them, like, $40 a file, and they verify and validate title company licensing, bank accounts, all of it. In the in the weeks since then, we've they've told us that this is the most sophisticated incident they've seen in several years. The FBI said the same thing. But since we caught it in forty eight hours, we were able to issue a recall, wire recall.
And there's something to do with the UCC section nine secured by real estate something. Monday morning, we're doing an investigation because we still don't have the money. So, by the way, I was gonna say I got it back. I didn't get it back Friday. Mhmm.
So I spent the whole weekend in Cold sweats. Yeah. Damage mode. Right? Yeah.
Well, so Monday morning, we're on this interview with the head closer. I've got my lawyer, the general counsel, and we're helping people create affidavits for the FBI report because we had to get that filed. Yeah. And we didn't want our people to have to get interviewed 95 times. We wanted to, like, help them do affidavits, get it all submitted in a clean package.
I get a text from my banker. Says, got the money back. I'm like, log in to the bank account. Uh-huh. And it's there.
Next banker. Do I get to keep it? Because I didn't I didn't I didn't know how this worked. I mean, I've done I've sent a lot of wires. Mhmm.
And he writes back, LOL. Yes. And I'm just like, LOL, nothing, mother you know, I'm transferring that shit. So the whole point was with that funding shield certificate, I just always envisioned it would work like when you call AmEx and tell them that you got defrauded and they just put the money back on your card
Steve: Mhmm.
Tim: Ain't the way it was gonna work. No. They're like, no. You go to the FBI report and this and this and this and this and this and this. And, you know, it's gonna be like dealing with Allstate on a roof claim.
I mean, it was gonna take six months to get my money back. I would've got it back. But that $638,000 in a early stage company is rather significant. So tell you this. My team did nothing wrong.
Even with the even with the benefit of hindsight Mhmm. I found nothing that I could say, no. You should have come. Yeah. Now there you know, it's a Fidelity National title email, and it ended in it was initials.
So it was like f n I t c dot org. Mhmm. Hindsight, reading the exact mail to hyperlink Mhmm. You'd wish somebody had caught. Why would Fidelity be using a .org?
Mhmm. It was a Fidelity branch in Florida, and they were banking at a community bank in New York. Mhmm. That probably I I would imagine if we have that situation again, the team will ask extra questions there. Right?
Like, I mean, we just talked about the bank you used for your title company was here Right. In Scottsdale where the title company was.
Steve: Yeah.
Tim: Right? If it said First National Bank of Rockwall, Texas, you know, and it was the Scottsdale Title Company. I might be like, You know, someone needs to ask why it's there. And now it may be that Tim Harridge is a partner, and he lives in Rockwall. And Right.
Steve: But he's just checking the box.
Tim: Yeah. So, man, it was a bad bad it was the biggest thing it was, Steve, is it was a lesson in leadership. Mhmm. Because Tim Harrods ten years ago, I I wasn't ready to run this company. Ten years ago, I'd have flipped my shit.
People would have got fired. I'd have been screaming and running around. But I stay calm. Mhmm. I don't worry.
We have insurance. Don't worry. We have directors and officers insurance. Don't worry. We have errors and omissions insurance.
And I I did such a good job that my chief strategy officer, who's actually, you know, ten years my senior, called me that night and said, hey. I just wanna tell you, man. Like, your leadership today was off the charts. Like, I was inspired. I was like, great.
Thanks. Wow. Mhmm. But yeah. I mean and, you know, our our core values, I'm a marine, so I have to keep everything as an acronym Mhmm.
Are stars, speed, transparency, accountability, respect, and service. So when we debriefed on Monday and I had a company wide call, I was having a company wide call because the rumor mill had already started that we were going bankrupt and all that. Right? And I was gonna get way out ahead of that. But then I got the money back and it just dawned on me that it would have been really easy for Lacey, our my COO, to try to handle this on her own Mhmm.
And not alert me. It would have been really easy for her to hide it for a couple days trying to figure it out. But since she quickly, with speed, was very transparent, took full accountability even though I it wasn't her fault, and showed me the respect of being the leader and trusting me to be of service to the company and our shareholders, we were actually able to recall I was able to recall the wire. If we had waited till Monday, we could not have recalled the wire. So the way I just got goosebumps.
I love my team, and I love being a leader, and the marine corps taught me a lot about that. But on Monday, I was able to say, look. This is our core values in action. Because if if Lacey hadn't immediately expeditiously addressed this with full transparency, we would not have gotten our money back. We would have eventually.
But I'm telling you, the $638,000 it's a lot of money for a one year old company.
Steve: Well, that and then how much you gotta spend and attorneys and everything else.
Tim: Time.
Steve: Time and everything else. Yeah. So, and then the other part, you know, talking about boardroom. So we had Steve Richards here about a month and a half, two months ago, right, talking about hiring, how to hire effectively. Now you tend to be a big proponent of Steve's.
Yeah. Let's talk about that. I'm
Tim: his largest client.
Steve: Yeah. So how has Steve Richards and his, recruiting company helped you in building out Ternus? So
Tim: with Ternus, almost every hire we're making today was planned in June or July 2023. Like, I I I built a complete financial road map. And by being able to share that with the recruiting firm, like, no. We need to hire this many of these and this many of these, and in a couple months, we're gonna hire one of those. And, like, it's all just in the calendar.
Mhmm. It helped. ChatGPT has helped me extremely because I use there's a software called Cockatoo, See, like the bird.
Steve: That's a real that's a real software.
Tim: Yeah. It's a website. Cockatoo.com. Alright. I should get an affiliate code because there is one, but I just don't I just like to share shit.
$10 isn't gonna change my life. Find me some coffee. Anyway, with Cockatoo, you can upload any size. I I paid you for the premium version. It's a $180 a year.
Unlimited AI transcription of audio and video. Unlimited. So I've become this huge fan of AI and specifically this because, like, today, when I leave here, I'll put my phone in airplane mode, and I will open up a voice recorder, and I will just mind vomit into it. Okay. Well, I was gone today.
I need to do this. I need to do this. I need to send this. And this thank you note. I'll just all of it.
Just write on my mind. I'll email it to Michelle, Michelle, my coordinator. She'll transcribe it. She'll load it to chat GPT and then send it back to me with my, structured to do list and follow-up list. Mhmm.
Steve: And
Tim: then she'll share the link to that GPT. I'll hop in there and and say, great. Now please delegate +1, 234 and, tell Michelle to set these others as reminders throughout next week or whatever. It sends a follow-up email. I send it to Michelle and literally probably three hours worth of, like, trying to do stuff is done.
Well, the same thing goes with job descriptions. You know, it's like because I'll I'll I'll get my voice recorder. Like, look. I'm gonna hire a mortgage salesperson, but it can't be a normal mortgage salesperson. Like, they need to be a work really efficiently in a call center, but not transactional.
They have to be relationship driven call. You know, it's like just talk through it. Right? Then you just load it in chat, and it makes the job description. Yeah.
Well, then if you massage that job description and spend a lot of time with that and you give it to a recruiter, it's a road map. Yeah. And they did and then Steve's company goes out, and they have their special assessment, thing. And they make the changes for the profile type that they think would be best, you know, for that position. And then they posted it all on Indeed and LinkedIn and our job board and all that, and they take all the initial calls.
They take all the initial resumes. They make everyone take the assessment. Once they all take once they do that, they do a prescreen interview, and then they kick it over to our team. So it just saves a ton of time and just have a constant pipeline of qualified individuals.
Steve: Yeah. How many people would you say he's hired for your company? 20 plus. 20 plus. And you're so satisfied.
Tim: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: So I say this again because, like, he was on the show before, but, like, for everyone that, you know, is on the fence, like, go back, watch episode with Steve Richards. Like, the guy knows what he's doing when it comes to hiring talent. Yeah. Right? And that's the number one problem everyone has, hiring talent.
Tim: Well and then I've taken it even a step farther with him since we're such a large client. He takes the assessments for me, and we do a monthly call with my leadership team with Steve. Mhmm. And we talk through any performance issues we're having, and he looks at the assessments because he's just like a savant with that stuff. Right?
And he'll be like, well, look. Maybe with this individual, you wanna try this or maybe with this or, you know, maybe they're not a good fit. I'll look at that. You know, he's just very insightful, but it empowers my leadership team with better, I won't say management because I hate the word management, but better leadership practices to get the maximum return out of our time and employees.
Steve: I'm curious. Why do you hate the word management?
Tim: For me, I have the that so I'm a marine. Right? So former marine, I lead from the front. I picture that GIF that people or the whatever, the meme or whatever people post. And there's the one where the guy is sitting in the chariot with the people out front saying go.
Mhmm. And then there's one where the guys at the front of the people up front saying follow me.
Steve: Yeah.
Tim: And I just feel like leadership is follow me and management is go. Right.
Steve: I I I don't disagree with that assessment.
Tim: But there's a place for management within the company.
Steve: That's what I'm saying. Right.
Tim: Not your leadership team.
Steve: Yeah. Like, you and I cannot be managed. Right. And you and I can't manage people. We we can lead people, can't manage people.
But that's why I wanna make sure, like, there's still management at your company. It's just you don't like the concept in general of you managing people or you being managed.
Tim: Yeah. And I wanna train leaders. And so we have there's two interesting, distribution list at my company. One is leadership. I mean, that's just my c suite executives.
Right? There's only four of us. Mhmm. And then there's another that's the management team. And if I email the management team, that's like all the VPs, the sales manager.
We We don't have that person hired yet, but we're working on it. Mhmm. Like, the general counsel and even the general counsel, she likes to she needs to know a lot. But, like, she has to be added to the leadership distro list, and I was like, no. Because that leadership distro list has to be a safe place for my team to communicate and debate and disagree.
There's four of us. There's three of them and one of me. Mhmm. I tell them that in a best case situation, if this company is going well, I'll never have to make a vote. Yeah.
Right? They'll be able to figure it out by themselves. Mhmm. But, when we hire the CFO, the CFO will be on there. So then there will be four people, which could be some ties.
Steve: Mhmm.
Tim: But it's my hope that they don't wanna bring me ties, and instead, they compromise and figure it out. Right? Because but, anyway, so I want them to be leaders. But then, obviously, there's a role for management. I mean, the sales manager we're recruiting for, I think I did three second interviews last week, that Steve's team had set up.
And it was funny. One of them I really liked. I was like, that's the guy. And then later in the afternoon, I met the guy. Like, psychology major, all about you know, he said kept every other word was KPI.
You know? It's just like Your love language. That's that's your manager. Right? I mean
Steve: For sure. And then we mentioned a moment ago, so you're also in family. You just got a fancy chain.
Tim: Yeah. Yeah. So talk to
Steve: me about family. For those that aren't familiar with Family Master, because we had Matt Andrews here, a few months back.
Tim: I'm just a huge fan of what Matt does. And, like, I sit in these rooms, and I learned so much about the way people are marketing, the way they're using technology Mhmm. The way they're thinking. And for me, being in family mastermind keeps me connected with the grassroots level of what is getting people into the business today. Right?
I mean, the the real estate clubs, the speakers, the gurus, I mean, they are the front of the funnel. They're the top of the funnel, and they've always been the top of the funnel. And they bring people into the industry. And, you know, I just it's like one big market research thing and testing ground. I should do more, like, referral partnerships and stuff there, but I just find it fascinating.
I just I go to learn. I mean, I was in a con I was there all day yesterday, and, like, people wanna talk to me in the halls. I'm like, oh, man. I gotta go sit and listen. Like, I mean, they're doing a session on x y z one two three and, you know Yeah.
I just I like to hear the way they're thinking. I like to hear, you know, when Josh and Tiffany talk about something, then I hear, you know, Bob Bloom talk about something, then I hear, you know, Ron LeGrand would be there. You know, I just just That's
Steve: a great point, though. Like, I I didn't, think about that, the the perspective of market research, because you're absolutely right. The gurus, love them or hate them, are the ones that bring in new people into it. They're the ones that eventually will invest perhaps and use furnace. You get direct access to the people that are talking to the newest people inside the real estate investor community.
That's a great point. I didn't even I never
Tim: Well, and then I hear them talk about the the the the different funnels they're running and how they're performing and how the webinar still works. And and, you know, and I sit there and think, okay. Should I do webinars at Turnus? And if I'm doing webinars, I mean, financing is boring. Nobody wants to talk about the Federal Reserve.
Maybe it's case studies. Maybe it's different things. See, I'm I'm just always trying to think, like, what does the because what I do know is if I'm able to work with new people as early in the process as possible, If I do my job and I do it well, I've got a customer for
Steve: Yeah. You set them up for success. Yeah. Yeah. That's huge.
And then, let's talk about, I am a what do we call it, founder?
Tim: You're in the founders club. I'm in the founders club. Which means you're a shareholder.
Steve: I'm a shareholder. So I am putting my money into Ternus. Right? So I love this. So what am I investing in?
Tim: You are buying class b nonvoting shares in Ternus Incorporated. Mhmm. All investments involve risk. Do your own due diligence. Read the prospectus at invest.turnus.com.
I mean, you're investing in a collective vision. People say, what are the shares gonna be worth? I say, I don't know. Probably nothing. Just playing on that.
Yeah. My track record is my track record. Mhmm. You know, we can't promise a return. There's no target return.
It's it's it's it's ownership in the company. It's real ownership, in class b shares. The same the same class of shares that I'm giving my employees. Yeah. Because my vision is to be this employee and customer owned company.
You know, what you're really investing in is enabling supporting me at creating products and services that you need and that your customers need. On there, it's kinda cool. It shows the use of proceeds. You probably saw it. And it says, like, you know, of the 5,000,000 we're raising, 2 and a half million is for loan funding.
Right? So, you know, just I loan it 12% interest, so that's what I plan to do with that. Mhmm. But then it's, like, 500,000 for technology, and it goes into some things. And there's couple 100,000 for infrastructure, and it tells you what that means.
I like technology. We have three full time developers in India now. We have VP of technology we hired from realtor.com. We are spending a lot of money on AI. We are spending a lot of money on Salesforce integration.
I envision a world in the not too distant future where you can go to turnus.com, log into your portal, sync with Plaid. You know, it goes out and gets all your investment accounts and bank accounts and all that. But a lot of people don't know what it also does is it pulls your credit and pulls your background and it makes sure it runs a terrorism OFAC check to make sure you're not a fugitive or a bad guy. Well, my theory, my Nirvana, and Sanjay, our VP of Technology, and I talk about this all the time. Let's say you have a million dollars between your IRA, your four zero one k, your personal savings, and all that, the the the plaid stuff.
And you're asking for a $200,000 loan. On the next screen, I want you to put the property address and I want to run a couple little background automated valuation metrics. And let's say the confidence score how much the CoreLogic ABM? Mhmm. Let's say the confidence score is 90% or better.
And you're on a $200,000 loan, and it checks out that that 200,000 would be less than 70% of that AVM. And your estimated rehab, when cross referenced with the data that we have, seems to be in line. Why can't I just approve you for the loan then?
Steve: Can't think of any reason why you shouldn't be able to. As an as that person with a worth 1,000,000 getting a loan that's below market, I am aggravated that it's taking time to get that loan approved.
Tim: Yeah. And so, like, my thing is I told Sanjay, I said, look, man. Like, yes. We'll still have to get pictures of the house. Mhmm.
But we already we're already to the point where we text you a link and you go take the pictures. You can have it text to your general contractor, your acquisitions manager, your dispo manager. You can text it to your mom. I don't care who you texted to because it geotags and geofences those pictures, and I know when they were taken and where. Mhmm.
That's it. You know, so that can be done in a day. If you can't do that in a day, don't ask me to close in a day. Like, it's that freaking simple, right? But, you know, we're investing in that and that's what your money you know, some of the money that we raise goes to that, right?
Because investing in technology, as you and I have discussed about other things, is not a high return thing until it's finished. Yeah. Right? Like, the buying these datasets, you know, the the tax database is $50,000. I'm gonna I'm gonna go buy it, but I don't make any money off of owning an Excel spreadsheet.
Right? Yeah. It's only once that's in the engine and the engine is operable that the company receives benefit.
Steve: Yeah. I can share, like I have a lot of friends in the data business, and the amount of money they spend on data, it's insane.
Tim: It's astronomical. Multiple 6 figures.
Steve: Whether you sell data or not, just to buy it is that another thing too, I was saying earlier, right, we invested in Scottsdale Community Bank. What a regulated industry. This is not wholesale and, like, alright. I I bought a domain. I've got an Instagram handle.
I'm ready to go. Right. Like, they have to, on paper, plan on losing money for the first few years because they have to tell the state, we plan on having 11 employees exactly, and we will not open the doors until we have 11 employees or these not only numb the number of people, but the what their roles and responsibilities are because it's such a regulated situation. And there's a lot of money in the bank because we don't have this amount of money in the bank, and how do we know for sure, people that put in deposits are protected? You're going through this whole other deal.
We're like, yeah. We're gonna make a lot of money, but, man, there are some heavy startup costs.
Tim: Yeah. I mean, we lost money last year. We'll lose money again in aggregate this year. But part of that, like, I was joking around a lot last year. The bulk of my conversations last year were just the chicken or the egg.
Mhmm. Do you go get the loan volume before you hire the people, or do you hire the people before you have the loan volume? The what I settled on is if service is really one of my core values
Steve: That's what I was gonna say.
Tim: How can I right? How can I not have the staff ready to support the demand and provide an excellent level of customer service? Because then also, you don't provide customer service, you don't get a second shot. Right? And and and one thing you haven't seen about Ternus and then we're a new company.
We've done, you know, over a 160 loans now. We we we got no bad reviews. Like, we we we do right. And that's what people don't see. Like, here we are.
We're at this nice table. We got our lights and our big screen and all that. They don't see the 10 people you have in this building working, Right? To answer their comments, to provide fulfillment service. Like, I mean, you know, it's just so we'll keep losing money.
We we should get to the plan is to get to profitability this year, on a monthly basis. But we've invested you know, we're always investing eight months ahead of where we need to be. And, you know, it's it's funny because my wife asked me. Look, I know your vision is x, but why not just bring so and so in? And so and so is a good mentor of mine.
He's a billionaire. He's the guy that brought me into Blackstone. I could get $100,000,000 from me probably in a month. And I just told her, I said, because the minute I do that, we will run a very profitable business that is just like everyone else. And I don't wanna do that.
I don't I don't wanna be like everyone. You let off the show, like, why the hell did I stop being the executive director and sign up for this job that is, like, you know, seven days a week? I've never been more passionate in my entire career
Steve: That much is obvious.
Tim: About what I'm doing. I I I feel like I have a real purpose, and I can leave lasting change in the industry. And Yeah. It is it is fun to go to work every day. Not easy, but it's fun.
Steve: Yeah. Wanna admire that. And so we're talking about investing. So invest.turners.com.
Tim: Yep. Right.
Steve: I'm a shareholder, so you guys can join me. You guys can invest in Tim. Let's also talk about your products. Yeah. Right?
So, like, we're talking about, like, you know, investing in you because I I I love the mission division. I love the fact that 15 k on Amex, our domain, but the logo and the name screams mission, vision, purpose.
Tim: Yeah.
Steve: Right? It's hard to encapture all of that. Also, you know, through your passion, the way you're speaking. But if I'm not investing in you guys still, why should I use Turner? Today's podcast is brought to you by motivatedleads.com.
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Tim: So our primary product is a six month fix and flip loan. Mhmm. I don't go over 70% LTV of ARV. I'd offer 100% financing. So if you buy a good deal, we will loan you all of the purchase and all of the rehab.
Steve: Gotcha. Okay.
Tim: That's not common. Not anymore. It used to be. Yeah. So I got Wall Street involved.
Mhmm. I, we don't pull your credit. We run a background check. We don't get appraisals. Like, we talked about at the beginning, I bought thousands of houses.
I've never had to get an appraisal for me to buy a house. So why the hell do I need an appraisal to give money on a house that so, you know, we look at your comps. We have you send your comps and your picture. We wanna, like and that's what I tell my team all the time. Don't discount the local market knowledge of these some of these folks.
Now some of them are gonna be completely full of shit. But if they have a really good reason why the comps are misleading or they're or they put in a narrative that they're to pay attention to the scope of work because they're really rehabbing it exactly like comp number three, but pay attention. Yeah. Right? And so we're close to some of these fix and flip loans in in three days.
Steve: Three days.
Tim: Yeah. It's just it's simple. Like, you send me your bank account Mhmm. Information, like some bank statements. We make sure you have enough money to pay six months worth of interest.
Mhmm. Call me crazy. Yeah. That but to me, that's the credit. Right?
That's your ability to repay. And then, if you don't have the money or don't want to do that, we just say, look, send us, you know, then we'll just add six months of interest at closing. You can just bring the money and I don't care if you go get it from your dad, your uncle, your cousin, whoever, because now I'm holding on to it. Alright? So it is what it is.
It's 12% interest, 2% origination, and we charge a $1,995 processing slash closing fee, and that's it. And it that product look. We've got a lead problem. We got way too many people to call back. Mhmm.
We can't even get through all our calls. Yeah. We have a hotel loan, Something I'm passionate about because I love the hotel. I hate wholesaling or assigning. I'd much rather just pay for cash for the house, or use a Turner's hotel loan, I guess, is what I should say.
Trash it out, stick it on MLS. I feel like you get the best value. And one of my biggest problems with the signing properties is you basically make yourself a motivated seller because you have a deadline to hit, and motivated sellers always get the least amount of money.
Steve: So Oh, yeah.
Tim: Our hotel loan is sixty days. It's the lesser of 90% of the as is value as determined by us for the contract price. So get a good deal, and we believe the as is value is greater than the contract price. The contract price will be the loan amount.
Steve: You'll you'll fund a 100% on a hotel deal. Yeah. I'm just I'm emphasizing this because not everyone does this.
Tim: Common sense to me.
Steve: It's common sense because you're lending it in a way. It was as if it was Tim's money. Right? Because if
Tim: so I It is my money. Right? Because, like, I'm sure
Steve: now. Because, like, you know, I was at CG a couple weeks ago. I was like, you know, like, hey. What are your shares? What are your challenges?
Like, well, you know, apparently, I'm starting this little hard money company with my own personal money because my accountant says I'm an idiot for, like, having too much equity that, you know, work for me. So, okay, fine. You know, we'll start a hard money company. My wife will run it. Right?
Because I don't wanna be involved in it. I want something else. And ask the question. Hey. You know, what questions should I know?
What should I do? Blah blah blah. And, you know, a couple of people said very smartly because they also do hard money loans, like, don't lend more than you would pay for the properties. Like, that makes total sense. Obvious.
Right? But you're actually doing that as a company, not as an individual. As an individual, of course. Right? It's really simple.
But to get a company to do that, that's extraordinary.
Tim: Yeah. So the wholesale loan, it's a cool loan. I can't believe more people don't take it. We just we're just too busy. We were we had three salespeople in December.
We have nine today. So it's just, you know, need to get you out there to train them. We gotta talk about anyway, Yeah. It's 1.12% interest for sixty days. That's a steal.
Yeah. Yeah. And if you go over the sixty days, you get one extension for another point. Mhmm.
Steve: Yeah. That's beyond reasonable. Like, it's crazy because, like, I know, I've talked about Phoenix. It's hard to compete in Phoenix because the terms that you get. Right?
I mean, like, 10%, $900 doc fee. Right? Like, it's so cheap here. But
Tim: Well, I'm not even worried about loan here.
Steve: But they don't do a 100%. Right? It's 15% down, 20% down, which on one property is no big deal. But if you're removing six, eight properties a month, that's expensive.
Tim: And it can get you you know, you get you get light on cash, and you become a really risky borrower. Yeah. You know? So then and then we have transactional funding. We'll do it nationwide.
That's a point or $2,500, whichever is greater. Yeah. Because I you know, I mean, I I can't move the machinery around for a $50,000 wire. Right? I mean, you know, there's there's gotta be a minimum.
And then we do long term rental loans in 43 states. Yeah. And, we do some portfolio loans. And then my newest product that I hope to have ready by the shareholder meeting, the first shareholder meeting, which will be in Dallas in September, I kinda wanna be like Steve Jobs and have these big shareholder meetings and You don't
Steve: wear a turtleneck? No. And
Tim: but I will I would like to wear shorts and flip flops. That's, his original ones. I think you shared that yesterday.
Steve: No. You did not. No.
Tim: Nobody did. I digress. I wanna, like, use it to, like, announce products and things like that. So last week, we did our first line of credit. Working at the Kings.
But the theory is Steve has 10 houses. Steve has a $100,000 in equity in each house. Steve has a million dollars in equity. Steve refi them all in 2022 and has below a 4% interest rate on all of them. He doesn't want to refi or sell, but Steve needs cash to go to the auction or buy another house or whatever.
So our thought is we'll do 10% of the equity of the portfolio without any credit check or anything or 20% with, like, a kind of a full doc. 18% interest, interest paid when you only own funds drawn, whatever, and, like, a twenty four hour turn time, you just request the thing and draw down and we send it to you. And then I just do a bulk UCC filing and lien filing across all 10 houses. Now what I figured out on accident on the first test is the two houses were in the same city but different counties. So it kind of became a little complicated with the legal side, and I'm trying to keep the legal cost down.
Right? So
Steve: we're
Tim: gonna test that, keep going. I just I feel like investors need liquidity right now, and we all have a lot of it trapped in our houses. But, I mean, look, I my wife makes those decisions, and it's hard to get her to let go of some of these mortgage rates even though the house is, like, negative cash flow now because of taxes and insurance in Texas. But but we do long term rental loans, but here's a cool thing. So I posted yesterday on Facebook that I just locked a long term rental loan at six and a half percent interest.
75% LTV cash out refi. I don't get any special deal because I'm the CEO. I pay market rate. I don't believe you should ask ever ask for a discount from your friends, because why the hell would you not support your friend in their business? Right?
Why ask I mean, why? Anyway, now Jennifer asked for a discount. I told her no. But, anyway, the whole point is is this is a house. We owed $1.40.
It was rented for 1,800 a month. We kicked the tenants out because we needed to get the rent up to 2,200 a month because that's what market was, but they had lived there for, like, five years, and it was just trash. So So, we spent $25,000 fixing up the house. Now it's $35,000 because we had to replace the sewer line and the gas line this weekend, right after they moved in. That's the way it works, right?
Anyway, the point is it appraised over $300,000 We're pulling out we're doing a $215,000 refinance. 10,000 of that is fees because I'm paying two points and then there's like a $2,000 fee and then I'll have some title bullshit. Right? So $215 $140 -ten dollars two zero five dollars You got $65 k. I just spent $35 k getting it ready.
I net $300 I net $30,000 tax free. Yeah. Here's the crazy thing. I go from a 4% to a six and a half percent. I put 40,000 was 30,000?
30,000 in my pocket. Mhmm. And my cash flow went up because of the increased rent. Yeah. Right?
So it made sense economically. Then here's the craziest thing. So I went from like $115 a month net true net operating income to over 200. Here's the craziest thing. I take that $30,000 I'm going to put it in a vehicle called the Ternus cash flow fund.
I haven't talked to you about that yet. Dollars 50,000 minimum investment. Obviously, I'm going to kick in the difference. It's got an 8% preferred return, and we do a sixty forty split of anything above 8% with the investors. We believe it'll throw out at least a 10 to the investors.
But I'm only doing a six month lockup on it instead of a twelve or eighteen month like everyone else. Mhmm. And it's monthly interest payments. So you get the pref monthly, and then you get a quarterly true up. After the six month lockup, you want your money back.
You just the thirty day notice, send you the money. Mhmm. Somebody's like, well, how do you how are you only gonna do a six month lockup? My ass, I do six month loans. Pretty easy.
Right? Yeah. And I just think it's gonna be amazing because say I make 10%. Well, 10% on that $30,000 is about $280 a month. So just by being smart with my equity, I will have taken an underperforming asset, improved it, improved its cash flow, tapped the equity, and created what amounts to more than triple the original cash flow.
Yeah. Double dipping. Assets that were already there. You're double dipping. Yeah.
Like, she wants a Bentley next year, because we do cars every five years for depreciation. I just thought I said, look. We'll take a quarter mil cash. We'll drop it in the cash flow fund. Pay the Bentley payment out of that.
She goes, love a bitch. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I I think our our as far as products go, we kinda do everything, and we're gonna keep doing more. But So I
Steve: was already inspired through, like, you know, your vision, mission, and purpose as an investor. It's already inspired there. And then to know you have all these different offerings, I think even if someone didn't invest in you guys, I think it's crazy,
Tim: which you
Steve: the terms you have available.
Tim: So I
Steve: think you'd probably be overloaded with business. Hopefully, you'd be overloaded with business after today's show.
Tim: Well, that's cool. When is this, sir? Sunday. Sunday. This Sunday.
Steve: This Sunday.
Tim: Oh, yeah. You have one day. Anyone that invests before the March, this is a cool thing about crowd crowdfunding. It's like, I think, 5% bonus shares if or 10 five or ten percent one or the other if you if you invest before March 31. And then if it's five for the time base and it's 10 for the size base or I may have it backwards, go to invest.terms.com for all details.
If you do over 50,000, then you get, like, another bonus shares, which is just free shares. But for us, I I like the gamification of it a little bit. I like to reward people. You know, they get to be a part of the founders club. Obviously, we're gonna give people set discounts.
I think it says 20% off standard loan fees, by investing, and we'll have founders club events. The next one's in Charlotte after the boardroom, May 23. We're inviting all the shareholders. Down the street is the Charlotte Knights. It's a minor league baseball stadium.
Steve: Yeah.
Tim: And so we're gonna have like a big shareholder party. But, yeah, man. It's just it's just fun to win with friends, and it's fun to not have dumbasses tell me what to do in this industry.
Steve: Yeah. Well, what's great is that we have one of us inside the owner's box.
Tim: Right?
Steve: Because everything you're saying makes sense to me. This is what I would want in a loan. But oftentimes, there is, like, this criteria, this restriction, and we gotta do this. We gotta do this. Like, why?
Why do we need to do this? There's 30% equity. You can see the 30% equity. Why do I have to give you more money to protect you? You're already protected.
Tim: And here's what happens is I just lived it this week. We had the big fraud thing ten days ago. Mhmm. But what immediately happens? Lacey and Brian and everybody tightens down.
And next thing you know, we've got some weird requirement where the account executive loan officer has to actually, like, record a phone call with KYC and confirmation of terms before they can submit the application. And I just called Lacey, and I said, was that you or was that Brian? She goes, it was both of us, Tim. We just we really like, they were scared of losing my mind, and I love that. That.
Mhmm. I said, look. I just there is nothing about our core values that is that supports. We we we didn't make any mistakes. It's okay.
Get rid of
Steve: that. Yeah.
Tim: And, you know, god bless them for trying to protect me.
Steve: Yeah. You you want that.
Tim: But this is why our tagline is the investors lender, plural possessive. Mhmm. Because You said there's one of us in the owner box, and I got to push back. The point is like to have all of us in the owner's box.
Steve: Right.
Tim: Right? So like Tom, Bill, and I, like, we're just like self made real estate guys. So if if the loan makes sense, let's do it. Right? If we're protected, if it's something you would buy, do it.
Right. There's not a single loan in my portfolio I wouldn't be happy to have in my personal rental portfolio.
Steve: Yeah. Oh, it's it's it's brilliant. So, invest.ternus.com, t e r n u s for those of you guys who are listening. Alright. So changing the topic here.
Yeah. You have a podcast Yes. About two of my favorite things.
Tim: Oh, the beer and barbecue thing? Business and barbecue.
Steve: Yeah. Oh, it's business and barbecue.
Tim: It used to be. Ah, change.
Steve: Okay. So there's a Now
Tim: it's called real investing.
Steve: So business and barbecue. Yeah. It's my two of my favorite things.
Tim: They're my two favorite things still. Well, money, but business. Yeah. There we go.
Steve: So talk to me about your podcast.
Tim: It's called Real Investing, and my buddy, Ryan Harper, hosted with me. Mhmm. We know each other from the marine corps days. You probably know Ryan.
Steve: I know him. I know him from Propellio days.
Tim: Yeah. So I got I drugged Ryan into this business twenty something years ago. Oh, okay. Yeah. We were marines together.
We just have people on and just, like, shoot to shit and talk real. Like, I typically hit someone out of the gate with, like, the hardest question I can think of. Like, you know, if you were on when you next time you're in Dallas, seems like all you Arizona guys like the Cowboys, like, so I guess we'll have to, like, get a suite or something. I don't know. You're not invited.
Never mind.
Steve: Yeah. No. I have too many bad memories of the back when the Cardinals were in the NFC East.
Tim: Oh, yeah.
Steve: Sorry. And you guys had, the best lineman. I I think, like, you look up, if you Google, it's, like, the fourth best offensive line in history. But, yeah, I have a lot of childhood scars from watching just Emmitt Smith kinda just chilling through the defense because he had not just, like, the seven yards or whatever, five yards from behind the center, right, of of sprinting room, but that line created another four yards. Yeah.
So by the time you try to tackle Emma Smith, he's got a running sprint for nine yards. Yeah. It was not fun to watch. I'm sorry.
Tim: Thank you. But, no, we we just, like, I typically just hit people with the hardest question I can think of. Like, you know, if somebody's wholesale I'm like, wholesaling is is illegal, isn't it? Like, you know, I just I don't know. I think there's too much fluff out there, and and also make it fun.
So if you're ever able to come to town, if you're ever in Dallas, let me know. Like, we pay for your hotel room. Mhmm. Right? And we bring you into the office, and Ryan, like, shoots extra content for you.
Like, you know, it's it's I look at it as a way to really focus my time on spending time with people in the industry that, you know, we can help. So Yeah. It's a it's fun. It's on YouTube, like, every Tuesday, or Friday. I don't even know.
It's fun.
Steve: What is one question you wish more people would ask you? Hey, disruptors. If you're struggling to scale your business due to a lack of capital for your deals, this message is for you. I've been part of the Collective Genius Mastermind for over four years now, and one of the biggest benefits I get as a member is access to 100% financing for fix and flips. If you're doing at least 10 deals a year, want to network with top tier investors from across the country, and need access to 100% financing to continue scaling, go to 100percentmoney.com.
I've had my friend and CEO of the collective genius, Jason Medley, put together a short video with all the details. That's at 100percentmoney.com.
Tim: Well, I wish people would not ask me the dumbest thing I ever did or the worst thing that ever happened to me because I don't think that you really learn from that because you can't really learn from someone else's mistakes. You can follow their advice, but see, you make the mistake, you don't learn a lesson the same way. I wish more people would ask me. You should really come up to someone like me and say, Tim, what is the most valuable thing that you now know that you wish you had known ten years ago? Ago.
Yeah. Because, like I say, I am an eager learner. I'm a constant learner. I never stop. Obviously, if I had known that values in Texas were going to do what they did after COVID, we loaded up at 18 and 19.
But it's not even that. It's I wish I had learned to look at equity and IRR sooner. Here's why. I I love giving this example. Say you're able to be worth a million bucks at 30, the age 30.
Really, you bust your ass. You got a million dollars in the bank. If you'll just go get a w-two job at that point and then invest that million bucks in different funds and alternative assets and other business ventures where you can make a 20% IRR, Every five years your money doubles. And that's the power of money. So 30 to 35, you're worth 2,000,000.
35 to 40, you're worth 4,000,000. 40 to 45, it's 8. By the time you're 50, it's 16. 55, it's 32. 60, it's 64.
And then the craziest thing is 65 is a 130,000,000 freaking doll. Mhmm. Too many people will not delay gratification and just invest in smart in other smart people. Mhmm. Don't try to do it all your own.
I I would be worth so much more if I just started investing with other people. Mhmm.
Steve: Yeah. That's brilliant advice.
Tim: What do
Steve: you want to be remembered for?
Tim: Tarnas? I don't know if you were at the boardroom when I spoke in Dallas. It's just, ten years ago, I helped bring Main Street to Wall Street. And if my swan song is stealing Main Street back and giving it to Main Street, where it's this customer owned organic living company guided by investors, for investors, I I can go travel Europe.
Steve: Yeah. There it is. So invest.turnus.com. Thank you so much.
Tim: Thanks for having me, man.
Steve: Thank you guys for watching. See you guys next time.
Tim: Shout out to Steve Train. Jump on the Steve Train. Disrupt us.
