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Episode Description

On this episode of the On The Rise Podcast, host Jeremy Dyer talks with Anthony Rushing — former educator, 40-unit real estate investor, and mortgage professional — about a little-known strategy: the first lien HELOC. Anthony traces his unusual path from quitting college for a rock band to Teach for America to the mortgage industry, where he discovered a product that's common in Australia and Europe but rarely discussed in the U.S. He breaks down, in plain terms, how a first lien HELOC replaces your mortgage entirely, why it can pay a home off in years instead of decades, who it actually works for, and how it can free up liquidity to start investing. A genuinely educational conversation on using debt as a tool.

Summary

An unconventional path led to a mission of teaching.
Anthony quit college for six years in a rock band, returned to school, built a 40-unit portfolio, spent seven years with Teach for America, then moved into mortgages. The through-line is a desire for work that visibly improves other people's lives.

Building 40 units was a team sport.
Anthony is candid that he wasn't the money guy — a fan of his band who wanted into real estate mailed him a $200,000 check to go buy apartments because Anthony had his license. The lesson: a network and the right partners, not solo grit, made it possible.

Amortization keeps you paying interest for years.
Standard mortgages (FHA, VA, conventional) all use an amortized schedule where early payments are mostly interest. Most people refinance and restart before principal meaningfully drops, staying in an interest-heavy cycle — which society has accepted as the only option.

A first lien HELOC replaces the mortgage entirely.
Unlike a second lien HELOC that adds a line of credit on top of your mortgage, a first lien HELOC is a full refinance that sweeps in, pays off the mortgage, and replaces it with one large line of credit that functions differently from an amortized loan.

Two mechanics make it work.
Money flows in and out freely — everything you put toward the balance you can pull back out — and interest is calculated on the average daily balance for the month, not the prior month's ending balance. So the goal becomes keeping the lowest balance for the most days.

Use it like a checking account.
You drive all your income against the balance (a subtraction problem) and pay bills out of it (an addition problem). The monthly surplus — income minus expenses — is what actually pays the home down.

It only works with a surplus.
If income roughly equals expenses, the balance just goes down and back up with no net paydown — so it's not a fix for tight budgets. Anthony is refreshingly honest that at one point he was teaching it while not using it himself, because he didn't have the cash flow at the time.

It unlocks liquidity to invest.
Because everything paid in stays accessible, aggressive paydown builds a usable line of credit — unlike an amortized mortgage where extra principal is locked away. Anthony treats a slice as an untouchable emergency fund and views the rest as capital to leverage into real estate, often cheaper than hard money.