How He Built a $10M Real Estate Business From Foreclosures | Henish Pulickal

Henish Pulickal (00:00)
Your first year you might do a hundred dollars, but if you can get that to a thousand, that’s a ten X increase. You go from a thousand to ten, that’s another ten X.

go to 10 to 100, you just 10x again. go from 100 to a million, you just 10x again. So now can I go from a million to 10 million? Yeah, why not? I’ve done it four or five times already.

Quentin Edmonds (01:47)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast.

I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I’m excited about my guests. If y’all been following me, one of the major things that has me excited about what I do is when we get to learn new experiences from other people. We all can literally be doing the same exact thing, but because we have different mindsets, we have different processes, we’re gonna learn something from each other

There’s something that we do different. I’m excited because this gentleman, I think he covers a lot of ground with his business savvy and his business mindset. I’m excited for us to learn from him. I’m excited for him to tell you exactly what it is that he does. Mr. Henish, you’re here, man. How are you, sir? I’m glad to have you here. How you feeling?

Henish Pulickal (02:30)
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here and share whatever I can and tell you a little bit of my story.

Quentin Edmonds (02:35)
Absolutely, man. So listen, I’m a type I want to to dive in, man, I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the spaces that you’re in. And then tell us what markets you’re operating in, where you are in the world. People love to know that. Mr. Henish, sir, you have the floor, friend. Incredible

Henish Pulickal (02:52)
Yeah, I’ll try to do a brief story, but I grew up in Michigan, went to college in Michigan. My first job when I graduated in 2002 was in the subprime mortgage world, 2002 was a big thing. 8020, stated mortgages, and everyone’s getting it. So I spent a year in Ohio doing underwriting, learning how to put files together, income, assets, collateral, etc. then I spent the next three years downtown Chicago, and my clients were loan officers that were giving out the loans, and I would say, hey, if you’ve got

People that don’t work for conventional mortgages, come check out my company. We’ll get you that loan. I did that, was one of the top salespeople in the company for three years. around 2005, I felt a little weird about the market. I wasn’t smart enough to short sell it. But I was like, something seems weird that everyone can afford a nice house in condo, and I don’t know what kind of income they’re making and their credits kind of sketch. something seems weird. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I’m gonna take my savings as a young single guy and go travel the world.

Right. I don’t know if this business is going to be around forever. my president of the company at the time, we’re a six thousand person company, said, Hey, we don’t want to lose you. We’re a good guy. We’re gonna open an office in India. Do you want to go and run that? I know you’re kind of ethnically from there. And I never lived there because I was raised in Michigan, but I’d visited because I got family there. That sounds compelling, I’d love to explore that. So I went to India and ran an outsourcing operation. So all the data entry,

Title work, accounting, HR, payroll, doc stacking, about fifteen different processes were going on there with the hundred and fifty people that I managed. So that went really well. Got to explore India. after that I came back to San Diego. And that’s where I moved to San Diego in 2007 and run the foreclosed homes department. It was our last recession, Had a lot of foreclosed homes. Sure enough, all those loans ended up being bad news and people lost their houses. I had 25 asset managers working for me.

We had 2,000 properties across the nation at any given time. We were selling 450 of those a month. And I was the one signing the dotted line. set up the processes, built that department, sold a bunch of houses, did that for two years, did some consulting for a few years. I wasn’t ready to go entrepreneur just yet. So from 2009 to 2012, I was consulting for big banks like Bank of America and Chase for their servicing departments to figure out how to get through their foreclosed homes and short sales and loss mit and stuff.

So I did that. I didn’t love the travel. ultimately ended up connecting with a guy that was flipping houses here in San Diego. And he was ready to retire, move to Hawaii. so he’s like, Love you, you’re in, you’re the CEO, you just take care of it. started doing that, quickly found out that his values and mine didn’t match. He was one of those guys that was happy to lie and cheat and trick people to sign docs and sell them their house. And I wasn’t about that. I wasn’t about that life, it wasn’t my values, it wasn’t my morals.

I left within three months and I said, I think I could do the same thing he was doing, but just be honest with people. Yeah, I’d love to be able to buy your house and put some money into it. And if everything goes right, hopefully I’ll make some money. And that that was just way easier for me to tell people the truth than to have to lie to them about it. So that started that business in 2014 I started flipping homes. lot of NOD, a lot of NTS, a lot of door knocking. I had people working for me, helping me with that, setting appointments.

And knocking those down. And that evolved into I needed a project manager, hired a project manager full-time to take care of those flips. And that evolved into a business relationship 50-50, where we started an S-Corp construction company in 2018. So that same partner as my project manager in 2015 is still here. I just had a meeting with them a few minutes ago. Eleven years later, we’re still working together, and now we have a $10 million construction company together. So

Along the way, had a lot of opportunities to get involved with developments, building ADUs, building buildings, getting involved in hotels, boutique hotels, all in San Diego. I don’t do anything anywhere else just because I like to be there in person to go kick someone’s butt if I need to. I keep it all local and had some a lot of good luck, and I’ve had a couple times where I’ve had some bad luck. now in the last few years, what I found, especially as the market kind of shifted when the rates went up to six, six and a half percent.

And markets kind of flattened out in a lot of areas. We didn’t have the same appreciation. Those flips that I was getting weren’t making as much money. So I kind slowed down on the flips a little bit and I doubled down on my real estate business. And I’ve been able to grow that from five agents that I had working with me to over 50 that I now have working with me. And where last year, when people had a bad year, I had my best year. And this year, where people are having a bad year, I’ve already exceeded my volume from last year, this year on traditional sales.

and now I’m starting to get more flips back into the pipeline. Meanwhile, in the behind the scenes, I do have some development projects going on. A thirty unit that we’ve already started to build. Got a nine unit that we’re almost finished with. I got in and out of a hotel in Mission Beach here at the beach in San Diego for an eighteen unit that I got into, fixed up, and then sold out of as well. So I’ve done a lot of things that here in San Diego. and that’s what I’m up to. So I spend most of my time telling people I’m a realtor as a in my public persona.

But behind the scenes, yeah, I have other companies and businesses going on that are humming along and a bunch of people that work for me.

Quentin Edmonds (08:31)
Yeah, wow, man. Henish, man. Thank you, man. Thank you for taking us on the journey, man. Talk about what it is that you do now, kind of how you got into this space. So listening to you, obviously you’ve been through some transitions, some pivots. very savvy at what you do. So I love to make this statement, Mr. Henish. Always say destiny has no wasted moments.

Right, we are learning from every leg of our journey. We’re learning from the failure, from the success, is reinforcing the people that we are today. So I would love to know throughout your business journey, what has the journey revealed to Henish about Henish? Has it made you more disciplined? Has it made you humble? Has it increased your tenacity, your innovation? what is the journey revealed to you about yourself?

Henish Pulickal (09:14)
Correct, yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, so

how you do anything is how you do everything. And that’s been important to me. where I also have children now. I got three kids and one, I want to be a goal robot for them, two, I wanna be at optimal at all the different aspects of my life, not just for them, but for myself.

And to be a good role model to them and the people that work for me. starting off in the morning, I wake up early. I’m up at 5, 515 every day. I’m at the gym by six o’clock, And I’m not gonna be a fitness model anytime soon in my life, but I’m healthy and I’m strong, and I still play sports and I can still run faster than my kids. it’s so I like that. yeah. But it starts off early. So I start off with a sweat and then I get to work and I focus on.

Productivity, And now I’m learning how to do things and delegate the stuff that I don’t want to do or that I’m not good at or that other people could do easier or I could outsource to another country and focus on the things where I provide the most value. And that’s usually engagement with people directly one-on-one or one on ten or one on fifty, or whatever it is, because now I’ve got leverage with people working for me and that I’ve got some attendance at my events or my meetings.

that’s important to me. So I’m always continuously learning. If I’m in a car, I love music as much as I can, but I’m listening to books and I’m listening to podcasts about entrepreneurs, about founders, about incredible people and what they did, not just to get the ideas, because it does spur ideas for me, but also to have the mindset of what it takes to understand that you can accomplish these things, And once at a certain point that

there’s a base level of intelligence for everyone and anyone can get better at almost anything. And that’s the point. And I have a lot of confidence that I can instill that one, one, I always feel like if someone else can do it, I can do it. And two, if I can get better by a little bit every day, every week, that’s important. Two, so I’m always pushing myself to grow by having good role models around me, by consuming information that’s inspirational or motivational to me, so I can keep getting better myself.

professionally, personally, in all the aspects of my life because it’s important to me because how you do anything is how you do everything.

Quentin Edmonds (11:57)
Yeah. man. Brilliant, sir. Thank you, man. Thank you for that reflective answer. I hear you, I can see you reflecting and giving me a real authentic, robust answer. So I really appreciate your answer to that question. And I asked that question because at the center of our businesses is us, the business owner. Right. I always like to see where people are pulling their inspiration from, their mindset from. again, man, I really appreciate your answering that question, sir. let me ask you this. I want to talk some

Operational things because of course got people listening and some people need some simplicity, So what’s one operational thing that you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that you have that you can really see you putting that into place has really helped the way you change business has really led to some success.

Henish Pulickal (12:41)
having the right people that you can outsource to is important. And I think this I did this a few more than two years ago, but this was really relevant, is to have a good bookkeeper or accountant. If we’re in business, our job it should be sales, recruiting, or being in front of people and getting deals done. Right. You shouldn’t be having cross to check every check and line item and every credit card charge. Let a bookkeeper do that.

overseas or or s even locally or wherever, because that’s a thousand or two thousand dollars well spent. That’s frees up hours and hours of your time and you’ll get way better financials. So I think that that’s one thing that people skip out on when they’re starting off in a business or new, like I don’t want to spend any amount of money. But you can get cheap bookkeepers now, especially with outsourcing, for even just a few hundred dollars a month. Yeah. So please, please don’t do your own bookkeeping is is the first thing that I would recommend.

two, I think that having those mentors or advisors or coaches are super important, the way I joke about it is even Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods had coaches and they were the best in their game. And they had a coach to tell what to do every day. need you to do you’re doing a plank or workouts or mindset or whatever you’re gonna be eating, So having people tell you what to do that you trust.

To help you grow your business is an important thing that that I’m always pushing for. I always have accountability with my fitness, with my financials, with my business, with my productivity. And I make sure that people know that it’s not just top down. I let the people know that work for me. Hey, hold me accountable from the bottom up. Yes. Right. If you if you think I’m not doing something, the best use of my time, or if you think that I need to do something else to help or grow your business, my business, our business.

Let me know. So I have it all directions. I don’t have a hierarchy where it says that I only listen to people that are more successful or that employ me. That’s not true at all. I’ll let people at any level and I think that’s important because I find that if how to have the conversation and cue, you’re doing this right now as a podcaster, or probably in your own life as well, or if how to ask the right questions, you can get gold out of people.

Quentin Edmonds (14:40)
Yeah.

Henish Pulickal (14:41)
And I think that that’s one thing that I’ve learned over the years is that

Everyone’s got gold in them. Yeah. You just have to mine for it. you got to figure out what they they’re good at, what they know, what they’ve learned, and get them comfortable with them sh having having them share that with you because there’s always so much you can learn from every person you meet.

Quentin Edmonds (14:58)
Yes, sir. So well said, man. Henish, what’s next, sir? What’s the next real goal or what’s the next real standard? what are you looking to solve to scale next?

Henish Pulickal (15:06)
Yeah, one of the things that I’ve done being part of an entrepreneur group called entrepreneurs organization is, and in our in our group we have a two million dollar revenue minimum. You have to make at least two million dollars if we can join it. But we fortunately we have an accelerator group. So if you’re interested in these kind of organizations, we have an accelerator group that says that if you make at least two hundred and fifty thousand a year, join the accelerator group. We’re gonna give you the resources, tools, workshops, coaches, mentors to get you to two million as fast as possible.

So what I’ve done is I was kind of voluntole to help be a coach of an accountability group. So now I’ve got five members that all have around six hundred thousand to a million dollars in revenue at their businesses in different industries, and now I meet with them monthly to coach them and set up accountability and KPIs, key performance indicators for their companies with written out goals.

to grow their business to two million. And I was like, well, this is great. now that I’ve got my other businesses kind of on I’m not operational. I don’t have to be at my construction company for 40, 50 hours a week to keep moving. Right. So now I’ve shifted back a few years ago to focus on my real estate business, which has been great. And I was like, well wait, that’s not at $2 million a year yet. Let me get that to two million. So now I’m following those same strategies that I’m employing to hold this group of other entrepreneurs accountable.

To myself. And I’ve told them, hey, let’s make this a group thing, not just me helping you, you guys help me too, because now we’re gonna work together to all grow our businesses to two million plus and put these strategies in place that we can learn from each other. Cause like I said, I’m learning from them as well. Right. These guys have some of them have done a great job taking a business and 10xing it multiple times,

Your first year you might do a hundred dollars, but if you can get that to a thousand, that’s a ten X increase. You go from a thousand to ten, that’s another ten X.

go to 10 to 100, you just 10x again. go from 100 to a million, you just 10x again. So now can I go from a million to 10 million? Yeah, why not? I’ve done it four or five times already.

Right. So now putting that together and coaching people through that is helping me reflect on my own business and making sure I’ve got goals on that. So I’ve put new goals together to get to $85,000 a month in commission income from sales and eighty five thousand dollars

a month on flip or investment income to get to that two million a year just on my real estate side. Yeah. That’s just as a baseline goal. In addition to the other passive stuff I get in and distributions I get from my other companies and salaries and stuff. So just just growing that to that level a and using everyone that I have around me that I’m spending time with as a resource, as a lever. And sometimes just putting your goals down and sharing it. Yeah starts

Getting you closer to that goal.

Quentin Edmonds (17:38)
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Nan Sowell says, sir, I appreciate it. And I’ma love asking you this question.

I ask everyone that comes on. I want to hear their philosophy or their mindset around building healthy businesses, relationships. I would love to know what’s your philosophy around building healthy business relationships. What are some of the relationships? I mean, I know you already talked about the entrepreneur entrepreneur organization, but what are some other, maybe close business relationships that have helped you be successful? And of course, you’re mentoring people now. So just I want to hear from you, just

validity of building healthy business relationships.

Henish Pulickal (18:13)
Yeah, absolutely. with this in and let’s not get it let’s not get ha have any false pretenses about this. I’m not anywhere near so successful that I don’t have to work. So there’s no what, I’m good, I’m gonna retire LC in Tahiti, So I’m still working, I still gotta provide for a family, I still have to provide for payroll for a bunch of people. if I don’t work, the whole the whole thing comes crumbling down. but my mindset

In the last several years has always been to help people first, serve first, give first, share first, and let what happens afterwards come back. But usually people feel it, There’s like that cosmic, karmic, accountability. If someone’s like, Shit, this guy’s given me so much, so much value, so much help, I gotta think about how to share back with him. And I never ask for it, but they end up doing it anyways,

‘Cause they feel like they owe me something sometimes after I’ve spent half an hour, hour, hours or weeks or months helping them with whatever they’re doing, Whether it’s a sale, it’s a transaction, a complicated situation, a business problem, a financial problem, if I can just give them my support and help, oftentimes that’s enough to drive business my way. Absolutely. Because in that reputation of being a helper, a person that’s a servant, is very valuable. Yes.

Quentin Edmonds (19:20)
Sir.

Yes, sir. Again, so well said, one of the proverbs that I live by, and I quote it here, is Proverbs 1125. It says, when you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. you just sum that up perfectly. When I refresh you, when I serve you, it’s gonna come back around to me. There are people that’s set to serve me because I served you. That’s just like the the ecosystem.

Henish Pulickal (19:42)
Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. The yeah, the universe, balances it out. Absolutely. So I said, let me give as much as I can because I know eventually it’s coming back to me.

Quentin Edmonds (19:49)
Yeah, yeah. My dad, he sat me down one day, Henish. And he he actually frustrated me, but once I got it, I got it. He sat me down, he said, son, have you ever seen a tree eat his own fruit? And I said, Dad, what? What are you talking about? He said, Have you ever seen a tree eat his own fruit? And I sat with it and he was like, No. He was like, You grow fruit.

so people can eat from your tree. They can pluck from you. And sometimes it feels uncomfortable when they keep plucking from your fruit. He was like, but you grow so you can nourish other people. He was like, but trust and believe there is a tree for you to go to that you can pluck from and be refreshed from. I was like, okay, Dad. I was like, that makes sense. Yeah.

Henish Pulickal (20:26)
You can call

it do, If you give is eventually like, okay, I need help. I’m gonna reach out to someone. Hopefully they say yes to me. Even if it’s not someone you’ve helped, because hopefully you build up some balance in the universe and said, Hey, what, you’ve helped enough people, this person’s probably gonna say yes to you to help you.

Quentin Edmonds (20:40)
So

well said, man. So well said. Henish, sir. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

Henish Pulickal (20:50)
I

I have a social media presence so you can find me on the Instagrams and Facebook and stuff like that. I’m on LinkedIn if you’re not on any of those. otherwise if you just Google my name, fortunately there’s not many Henish politicals around in the world. So if you type in my full name you’ll find me. If you type in Henish San Diego, you’ll find me pretty easily. and happy to connect with anyone. I always left at least having, introductory or exploring calls with people.

so I appreciate that. Yeah, so hap happy to connect. and I’m easy to find and I share a lot of my life and business on social media. So it’s on there so you can kinda see what I’m up to.

Quentin Edmonds (21:21)
Absolutely. Well, Henish, let me say three things to you, sir, sincerely. One, thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for giving us some of your time. I really value that and thank you so much. Secondly, sir, thank you for your story. Thank you for the gift of your authenticity, the gift of your integrity. I believe our stories, they plant little they plant seeds, And sometimes we don’t know where the seed is falling. We don’t know when it’s gonna take root.

But the seed is out there and they can grow in any given time, given the right nourishment. I really believe that you do sow some real seed out there so that somebody can grow later on when they watch this. So thank you for that. And lastly, man, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on, sir.

Henish Pulickal (22:01)
Incredible. Yeah. Thank you for the platform and asking the right questions. So that was that was awesome. I’m excited to have had to spend some time with you and whoever I can help with these words. And yeah, happy to connect with anyone. I love I love it. This is my favorite thing in the world.

Quentin Edmonds (22:12)
Absolutely, my friend. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Henish. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him, reach out. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here. I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Henish. So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, have a fantastic day.