Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:37] Henish Pulickal shares early entrepreneurial experience selling cards door-to-door in Michigan
- [5:50] How Henish earns trust from distressed homeowners and starts life-changing conversations
- [9:00] The challenges of working with an unethical business partner
- [11:30] Creative financing techniques to attract business
- [14:25] The decision to move brokerages and the shift to ARO Real Estate of America
- [17:23] Strategies for retaining real estate agents and helping them grow
- [21:33] Redeveloping a rundown motel into a luxury hotel in Mission Beach
- [23:57] Leveraging California’s Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) laws for Affordable Housing
- [26:04] The impact of community and mentorship, particularly through the EO
In this episode…
Navigating the world of real estate can feel overwhelming, especially when foreclosure or financial uncertainty looms large. For many homeowners, understanding their options — or even having someone trustworthy to talk to — can make all the difference. But how do you build a business that not only thrives on these conversations but also transforms communities? Henish Pulickal, a seasoned real estate investor, shares how he built a diverse real estate business by leading with service, creativity, and integrity. Henish discusses his unique approach to pre-foreclosure outreach, how he developed infill properties in high-demand California markets, and why ethical deal-making consistently wins over both clients and team members. From flipping homes to redeveloping a boutique hotel, Henish brings valuable lessons in entrepreneurship and relationship-building. Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Henish Pulickal, Founder and CEO of CalHomeCo, about using real estate to create value and solve problems. Henish shares insights into flipping homes, infill development, ADUs, team leadership, and staying agile during market shifts. Whether you’re an aspiring investor or an experienced entrepreneur, this episode promises valuable lessons on creating opportunities and sustaining success in the real estate industry.Resources mentioned in this episode:
Quotable Moments:
- “I help at least five people per month stop their bank from foreclosing, and I don’t charge a fee.”
- “You lead with integrity, and it all pans out nicely.”
- “I parted ways, did a Jerry Maguire move, and most of the staff came with me.”
- “If I’m making their mortgage current, lenders are usually just happy they’re getting paid.”
- “Half of the people building ADUs are doing it for family, not just for rental income.”
Action Steps:
- Lead with value in outreach: When approaching distressed homeowners, prioritize education and assistance over sales. This builds trust and often opens the door for mutually beneficial outcomes.
- Use creative financing: Techniques like subject-to and seller carry deals can unlock properties that others overlook. These strategies can minimize capital outlay and improve margins.
- Focus on ethics and reputation: Long-term success in real estate comes from transparency and doing right by clients. Ethical practices lead to repeat business, referrals, and investor trust.
- Adapt your model during market shifts: As foreclosure activity slowed during COVID-19, Henish pivoted to market acquisitions and brokerage services. Agility ensures continued growth amid changing conditions.
- Capitalize on California ADU opportunities: New laws have made it significantly easier to build accessory units. This can be a profitable and socially impactful strategy to address housing shortages.
Sponsor: Rise25
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John Corcoran: 00:00 All right. Today we’re talking about real estate investment, property management, and really the power of leveraging real estate to build wealth in your personal life. My guest today is Henish Pulickal. I’ll tell you more about him in a second, so stay tuned. Intro: 00:16 Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show. John Corcoran: 00:33 All right. Welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, if you’ve listened before, every week we talk to smart CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. We’ve had Netflix and Grubhub and Redfin and Gusto, Kinko’s, YPO, EO, Activision Blizzard and many more. Check out the archives if you want to learn about those. And before we get into this interview, this episode is brought to you by our company, Rise25. We help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you to run your podcast. We are an easy button for any company to launch and run a podcast. We do three things: strategy, accountability, and full execution. And I know from looking at your background, researching you before I got here that you appreciate the value of relationships and how they can do for your career. I feel the same way. That’s what I love about doing this sort of thing is talking to someone like you. We’ve never met before, but we’re going to be able to dive into your background and your story and share some of your wisdom with all of my audience. And if you want to learn more about him, we’ll share his contact info at the end for me. If you want to learn about me, go to Rise25.com, or you can email us or our team in [email protected]. All right. Our guest is Henish Pulickal and he is the Founder and CEO of CalHomeCo. It’s a full service real estate company based in San Diego. He’s got a diverse background, worked in real estate investment, property management and home renovation, done fix and flips and things like that. And he’s got a couple of different elements to his business, so I probably did a crappy job of explaining it, but he will explain the different areas of his business. But I love to hear what our guests are like, what they were like as a kid first, and you as a kid went door to door selling custom holiday cards around. Not beautiful San Diego, where you live now, where the weather is balmy and beautiful. 350 days of the year. But in rural Detroit, in Michigan. So, you know, it gets a little cold there in December. So how did what was motivating you to go sell cards door to door in December? Henish Pulickal: 02:37 You know, I was in fourth grade. It probably started maybe in October or November. But when you live in that environment, you grow up in it. You don’t even think twice about it. And especially as a kid, you know, I see it with my kids today. It’ll be 45 degrees when I’m driving to school in the morning. They’re still in shorts and a t- shirt. I’m like, guys, get at least a sweatshirt on. But when you grow up in Michigan and yeah, ten, 20 degrees, you just accept that. That’s what the temperature is. And you deal with it, you know? You know, there’s no like, oh, it’s too cold because it’s always relative. So I did it. But it was one of those things that the school would put out where saying, hey, you know, participate in this holiday card sales. And if you get enough points, you can get a video game or a skateboard or something like that. And so I’d always see the prize at the end that you were motivated to and was happy to go door to door and make my neighbors customized holiday cards, you know, greetings from the Smiths. You know, happy, happy New Year 1989 or whatever it was at the time. And it was great. You know, I think my parents, my mom or dad would kind of follow me along on the street, but I would be up at the door by myself with my paperwork saying, hey, let’s pick a design. This helps me for my school. John Corcoran: 03:40 I think that’s such a great experience for kids going door to door for anything. I worked in politics in college and knocked on doors for candidates and things like that, but selling stuff, going door to door is having to face that kind of rejection, which can be brutal. It really steals you for life ahead, right? If you can handle that. You know, for me personally, I’m like, well, at least I’m not going door to door. Anything I do now, right? Henish Pulickal: 04:07 Honestly, it’s not that bad. I mean, I still do it nowadays as the case needs to be. And I would argue that 20 to 1 good to bad ratio, you know, there’s very few people that are pissed I’m not there. You know, selling something weird. One if I was a kid, you know they’re pretty nice to kids. Two, if you’ve got something of value and you’re an actual professional I mean, usually people are okay with talking to an actual professional and being nice. I don’t really get, yeah, door slammed on me even when I’ve done that over the last ten, 15 years in my career as needed, you know, real estate related. John Corcoran: 04:37 So I’m curious, what do you do it for? What do you do for now? Henish Pulickal: 04:40 Well, I mean, nowadays, you know, there’s a good way. I typically have my team members do it, but sometimes with follow ups or if I’m in the area and I see some leads on pre-foreclosure leads for real estate, those are my best opportunities to flip. And so during Covid, that kind of business died down because there were foreclosure moratoriums. But now that’s picked back up again. Those are great targets. You know, typically I lead service first. I’m here to help you make sure that the bank doesn’t take your property. But ultimately, they run out of options to save their property and will end up selling. To me a lot of times, too. And if I wasn’t there showing up at the door to have that conversation, you know, one, they might have lost their house, might not have got any money had a sheriff kicked them out. So there’s ways that I’m able to help them and create that rapport. And, you know, those are the hardest people to knock on because they’re buried their head in the sand like an ostrich, thinking they can avoid their problems. So if I can get them to open there and talk to me, I can usually convey the value. John Corcoran: 05:31 Right, right. Yeah. I’m really curious to know, like, you know, you get to the door, like, what’s the first thing out of your mouth? Like, what do you say to them to get them to not, you know, you know, as you said, like give you a slice of their day and, and really open up about what their challenges are for sure. Henish Pulickal: 05:50 Yeah. You know, I make sure I’m talking to the owner, I introduce myself, I tell them I’ve been in the business for a long time, and I help people that have problems with their mortgage and on average I help at least five people per month stop there. Their bank foreclosed on their house. And I don’t charge a fee for that. Would you want to hear more? John Corcoran: 06:06 That’s a pretty compelling offer for someone that is feeling a little overwhelmed. Henish Pulickal: 06:11 Correct. Yeah. And typically, you know, they will meet with me. I’ll ask them to just tell me the story of when they missed their first payment. What happened? Kind of creating some rapport and getting them to understand that I’m listening to them and then go from there and then go over their options of what they’ve got. But at that point, I’m in their house. I’m sitting at their dining table and reviewing this with them. John Corcoran: 06:29 Yeah, yeah. So, you know, sorry. Go ahead. Henish Pulickal: 06:32 Yeah. So typically after that first meeting, they’re usually like a sigh of relief. Thank you. I think I’ll sleep well tonight for the first time in a long time. I appreciate you coming to help. Otherwise, you know, the only options they’re getting are from wholesalers and retailers saying, let’s sell your house right now. And a lot of times that’s the last thing they want to do. But ultimately they’ll do it if they can’t find another solution. And I give them all the different opportunities, you know? John Corcoran: 06:54 Yeah. You know, I’ll say I graduated from law school in 2007 and went to work for a real estate firm. Going into that whole economy, you know, meltdown and had a lot of conversations with real estate owners that were upside down on their properties and didn’t know what to do with it. And it was some of the most rewarding work that I did. Being able to help people that were overwhelmed weren’t sure what to do and give them kind of like a path forward, you know, in the that business model didn’t work that well for as far as like, you know, because, you know, lawyers tend to get paid a lot, but that’s for a clientele that didn’t have a lot of money. So it didn’t work that well. But I definitely enjoyed it for sure. I think it was really really rewarding work for sure. Henish Pulickal: 07:40 I mean, those people are very appreciative at the end of a transaction, they’re typically hugging me and thanking me and giving me referrals too. So it works out really well. And, you know, as long as you just kind of lead with integrity, it pans out, pans out nicely. John Corcoran: 07:52 You worked in a number of different real estate Roles. And then it wasn’t until about 2013 that you went out on your own. So what motivated that? What inspired you to make that leap? Henish Pulickal: 08:06 You know, I had a taste of it earlier and I felt like I knew enough to do it myself, but I still wasn’t totally committed to doing it on my own. So, in fact, you know, one of my good friends and mentors early on owned a title company. And so when I connected with him, I was in San Diego and said, hey, you know, I want to do real estate. I want to flip houses, you know, what do you recommend? And he connected me with a guy that had been in the business for 30 years and was ready to retire and wanted me to take over. So I met with him. He agreed. He wanted me to take over and he moved to Hawaii. So that was what kind of started it. And I kind of learned that angle of the pre-foreclosure business and how that could be my target market for flipping houses. John Corcoran: 08:52 Doesn’t sound like the best mentor. If he immediately hightails it to Hawaii and says, you take over everything. Or maybe it was because then you had to, you know, run it all? Henish Pulickal: 09:00 Yeah. I mean, you know, we had the deal flow in. He had a small company, you know, so we had some people that knew what was going on and and drove in the leads, drove in the business. And I was kind of pulling the strings at the top. But it was one of those things where I quickly, within a few months, found out that the owner didn’t have the same values, morals, and integrity as I did. Was happy to kind of cheat and lie to people, and I wasn’t about that. So as soon as I understood that about the owner of this company, I thought to myself, I could do the same thing and just treat people honestly and probably get similar results. Yeah. And so that’s what I did. So I parted ways with him. Kind of did a Jerry Maguire move out, and everyone kind of came with me. It wasn’t just the goldfish or whatever it was. And so most of the staff came with me and came. John Corcoran: 09:47 To the office of Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire, famously, is like, I’m leaving. Who’s coming with me? And no one came with him. Henish Pulickal: 09:52 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the opposite of Jerry Maguire. So this in this case. So most people came with me and actually some of the staff is still with me now looking back 12 years. Wow. So I actually started my own company in early 2014. John Corcoran: 10:05 Question. Was it difficult, given the ethical issues that the individual ran his company with? Was it difficult to establish a new culture of trust, of respect, of upstanding ness, if that’s a word? When you brought the existing people that had been used to that other culture, was it difficult to establish a new culture? !no name provided!: 10:28 Sometimes it is, yeah. Henish Pulickal: 10:29 I think not, and I think that’s why some of the key people were happy to come with me, because they didn’t feel good about working with this guy that they saw on a weekly or monthly basis, screwing people over. Right. And so I think they didn’t resonate with that as well. And they didn’t sleep well thinking that, hey, I’m helping this person screw people over. Versus, you know, hey, let’s tell people the truth. Hey, we are wanting to buy your house. And if we can make some money on it, that’s the goal. But it’s also a risk. Yeah. And if we can also help you out and make it a win win, then it’s a win win. Yeah. You know. So that’s it. I would do it that way as opposed to him saying oh this isn’t actually a purchase. You know, you actually still own your house. And they’d have him sign grant deeds and they wouldn’t own the house anymore. And so I couldn’t get behind it. And, you know, he was trying to encourage me to lie to people, and I just couldn’t get behind it, you know?Pages: 1 2