Gil Vaisman - Turning Garages Into Gold
Gil Vaisman is the founder and CEO of Go ADU Construction, a Los Angeles–based design-build firm redefining how homeowners approach Accessory Dwelling Units and garage conversions. With an unconventional background as a professional picture editor in Hollywood, Gil brings a storyteller’s attention to detail and clarity to an industry often plagued by confusion, surprise costs, and poor communication. Frustrated by the lack of transparency in construction, he set out to build what he calls the “Anti-Contractor”—a client-first, tech-enabled company that simplifies permitting, zoning, and engineering so homeowners can confidently turn ADUs into smart, long-term investments. Passionate about solving the housing shortage and creating real value for families, Gil shares practical insights on ADU development, urban housing, and building a values-driven business rooted in trust, innovation, and integrity.
In this episode, you will be able to learn:
- How to leverage home equity to build an ADU and create immediate rental cash flow without purchasing new land.
- Why ADUs are one of the most efficient wealth-building strategies in high-cost markets like Los Angeles.
- The practical realities of launching a construction business and building credibility from zero track record.
- How to treat early business margins as “education expenses” to accelerate long-term growth.
- Real-world lessons from transitioning out of a W-2 career into full-time real estate entrepreneurship.
- Strategic insights into solving housing challenges through multigenerational living and accessory dwelling units.
- The mindset required to scale sustainably, protect your reputation, and build a client-first construction brand.
The key moments in this episode are:
2:30 From Film To Multifamily
5:36 Property Management And Team
9:47 Finding The ADU Niche
13:06 How ADUs Solve Real Problems
15:47 Starting A Construction Business
17:38 Overcoming Contractor Trust Issues
19:34 Reputation As Your Currency
24:02 Expanding To Rebuild Homes
25:18 How To Contact Go ADU
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Full transcript here:
Gil Vaisman
You can spend a lot of money in in education, or you can educate yourself. That's how I see it. And uh whatever money I lost because I didn't know what I was doing, it's the bill to pay to get better and to understand how to do things better. And there is like even today, every single project that I have, there's something that I'm gonna learn. There's always a learning experience. I I there's there's much more that I don't know than what I do know.
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the Real Freedom Show. We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. If you want to get started on your real estate investing journey or just anything in real estate, check out our website. It's freedomthrurealestate.com. That's freedomthroughrealestate.com. It's where we put all of our content, all of our episodes, articles, a way for you to learn and hopefully grow in the next step of what you're gonna do inside of real estate. It's an awesome entrepreneurial playground for people to do great things, stick around, learn different things, and ultimately build that time and financial freedom. So we're just excited to be able to celebrate that, tell great stories, and help you on your path. And so today I'm excited because we're talking about kind of an asset class that we haven't really talked much about, and that's ADUs. And so I'm so excited to share. We have Gil Weisman here. Not what you'd expect background as an editor in Hollywood. And why wouldn't you expect that somebody doing that would get into ADUs? And that's what I love about real estate is people can always bring transferable skills. So that was your background. Now you are the founder of Go ADU construction with client-first philosophy, really helping people, going against the grain of what typical construction does. And then there's a real financial gain for people from the real estate investing side. You also have a background in real estate with some apartment buildings with your mom. And so we're excited to hear about your story. So thank you so much for being on the show, Gil.
Gil Vaisman
It's a pleasure being here, Mike. Excited to share my story and to give your audience another perspective on a brand new asset plans.
Mike Swenson
Give us a little bit about your background, kind of, you know, either growing up outside of real estate, what you did before you got into the real estate space, and we'll just take the conversation from there.
Gil Vaisman
My background professionally was always uh storyteller. I went to film school in Spain, and I came to the United States after the financial crisis because there wasn't any work in Spain, and I came to work as a non-scripted specialist. Like, so you're kind of like the writer, but also the editor in mostly reality television documentaries and so forth. And I always saw real estate as a way of gaining financial freedom. And so got thrown into it. My dad passed when we were uh before I moved into the United States, and we kind of inherited his life insurance money that we needed to put to work. We it's like, what do you do with all this? You know, like don't waste it away. It was my dad's entire working. Uh and so my mom back then needed an income, and we decided to invest in real estate. Uh, we found uh multifamily investment uh to and and I kind of took the reins of it, like took the reins of learning about everything that like multifamily involved. Like I had a philosophy of doing things locally, great location. You needed to be able to uh do capital improvement, so like the value wasn't maximized, and also it had to cash flow. So it took some research, but I never suffered from that. Like we saw about 10 properties until we found one that like uh checked all the boxes, uh jumped into it, and uh that's how I got that. That's I learned doing it.
Mike Swenson
Now, is that in the LA market as well when you guys move cure? Okay, so everything everything's kind of LA market. Okay, and in terms of just kind of out of curiosity, you know, you'd kind of mentioned your your specifications of what you're looking for. And and I purposely asked this question because I want to encourage people that you know, all those keyboard warriors and people who want to just listen to another podcast and watch another video and learn a little bit more before they step in. Like you guys just kind of jumped in, right? You said 10 properties, you didn't have probably a sophisticated formula of analyzing deals or a deal calculator. You just looked at some buildings and and kind of jumped in, right?
Gil Vaisman
I had my spreadsheets, I done my podcasts, I read a few books, I had a really good agent who was good with working with first-time buyers. So she uh I like, but uh I did as much prep work as I needed, but I knew time was of the essence. I was in uh in a seller's market, so properties were just getting more and more expensive, and you have to be decisive when you saw a good deal, you have to pounce on it. Uh otherwise, there was someone else coming in with more cash and and we'll snatch it from you.
Mike Swenson
Now, you mentioned that property needed a lot of work, and then you kind of came in as the property manager. So talk about that experience, having never done that before, and kind of leaping into that and and taking over the reins of the performance of the asset. That's a big deal. You know, we talk about you know, buying it right and eventually you're gonna sell it, but you need to have good asset management for that to grow in value and to be a place where your tenants want to live and a property that eventually you're gonna sell or or hold. So talk about that.
Gil Vaisman
Yeah, I was really blessed because the first person that was recommended to me, I've stayed with him for 15 years and now he's my business partner. So he was the handyman that came to do the repairs, and he was recommended to me like he can do construction at a good price, and like we hit it off ever since, and we now like are married basically. Like, I spend more time with him than my than my own wife, and so with him, like I had a great asset because like you need that person that's gonna help you do the building itself, like that cheap contractor. So I found them back then, and uh like very knowledgeable, good prices, quality of work, like all the things that that you need, and uh it was a matter of prioritizing. We had seven units, all of them needed work. So, which ones to tackle first, and then like as we would get vacancies, we would tackle the other one. But like I was fortunate enough for things to work to ended up working out by them by themselves. Like I only had to do a couple evictions, everything else was like organic vacancies, and I had enough capital set aside to to keep improving it, and and uh the ROI ended up being like uh 1.5x in five years.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, that's great. Doing that at the same time, so is is that when you were working on you know, working on Hollywood and doing that as well as kind of your day job, you were doing that stuff on the side?
Gil Vaisman
Absolutely, yeah. My I I didn't quit my day job until I had my current business established. Like I I always had like the plan B, then the plan B became the plan A, which is Go ADU, my current uh service business, which is also in real estate. But um that came years later. Like I just started gathering experience in real estate. I did some flips as well. I did some little like I got into a little bit of a development deals, like with the same structure with the same partner. Like uh I I was always you can spend a lot of money in in education or you can educate yourself. That's how I see it. And uh whatever money I lost because I didn't know what I was doing, it's the bill to pay to get better and to understand how to do things better. And there is like even today, every single project that I have, there's something that I'm gonna learn. There's always a learning experience. I I there's that there's much more that I don't know than what I do know.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, we talk a lot about education expenses in those regards because you know, you can go back to school and get another degree or an MBA or whatever that might look like, a doctorate degree. But oftentimes you're learning through doing. And yeah, you're not, you know, always maximizing the best decisions, but you learn, and that makes you sharper and smarter for your future decisions. And so, you know, you have to you have to have enough capital to be able to weather that storm, but a lot of those life lessons come up as education expenses, and it's gonna help you you do something better in the future, or get you to the point where you see a a need in a market and and being able to take a leap like you starting your business.
Gil Vaisman
Absolutely, yeah. So that was my wife who like said it. I was I spent like probably I did five to ten different DBAs when I was looking for my my my plan B, like what business to do. I tried property management, I tried arbitraging Airbnbs, I tried a bunch of different things. And then my wife was like, it's in front of you. Like you've always done this, like I was always kind of like an ADU evangelist. Like we built our first ADU in 2017, we bought a house, we stretched our budget to the limit. Like we bought top of our budget, like we could barely qualify for how much we bought it for. But I knew that in a in a market that would appreciate like the LA market with the opportunity to build an ADU in our property, that was going to take care of our mortgage. That it was just getting in it, and and and I'm glad I made the effort. And so I built my own ADU, and people back then needed more education into what ADUs were. They weren't aware that it's something that like you can build in any property, any lot within our state.
Mike Swenson
And so, like, I was just to just to chime in for a quick second, um, ADU accessory dwelling unit, right? So it's like an additional spot, could be a garage, could be a a tiny home, kind of something like that, but essentially a second building on your existing land to be able to have people live in, right?
Gil Vaisman
Exactly, exactly. So it has its own utilities, it has its own access, it's uh basically its own independent little unit within the same lot. And there was a law that passed in 2017 that allowed the state law basically trumped any local ordinance that would forbid this type of unit to be built. So, like even if you have local restrictions, like a state ordinance came in 2017 that made it the law of the land to allow ADUs to be built. Like you guys in the in your local city, you figure it out, but this is the how it's gonna work. And so there was a lot of opposition, there was a lot of lawsuits, it was it was not easy to do. People were didn't know exactly how to do it in 2017. Right now, we've had like dozens of laws passed ever since, and it's gotten much easier. Now I don't need to educate people as much as I did back then. But back then I was educating people and almost became like uh an informal consultant. Like my friends would come to our house, I would show them the ADU back there, I would say, Yeah, that's they're paying my mortgage. And they said, like, how do you do it? And so I started teaching them. And then three years later, my wife said, This that's your business, that is the market that like we need to jump on. And that's when I I I got my contractor's license, I had enough experience building my own projects to qualify, got a DBA, I found the name Go ADU, which was like an amazing name for for SEO purposes. Um and uh like I started trying to do it by my own, like, and and I've learned a lot about business and a lot about like how to run a successful business through trial and error. Like I read a lot, but I do a lot as well.
Mike Swenson
So for people that I mean, obviously you're in the LA area, space is tight. It's not like we can just go find new land and and become an explorer and be like, oh, yeah, we actually can build a lot more here in LA. Me and Minnesota, tight, but not nearly as in to the same degree as what you guys experience. So this kind of solves a few issues in terms of additional housing, providing income opportunities for people that want to use it as an income opportunity, but then even too, just solving the crisis in terms of you know families living together. Hey, we ran out of room or, you know, it what you can get in LA is is not nearly it's way more expensive than what you can get in Minneapolis, St. Paul, you know, for the same price. And so it's being able to also solve, you know, families living together, that kind of thing. But talk a little bit about what those ADUs can do in terms of problems they solve, both economically and kind of physically, just with the way that things are structured in LA.
Gil Vaisman
And and I'm gonna go into my storytelling side and basically tell the story of two characters here that are that are the homeowners in LA. Uh, one is this homeowner that like has their family, is uh struggling to make ends meet, and most of his net worth is tied up to his equity. And all of a sudden, have this everybody locked in a 3% mortgage four or five years ago, and now they want to be able to keep investing in real estate, like expand that portfolio. To go out there and and and go and find starter homes that are starting right under$1 million, like it's very tough to get that equity and then qualify for that additional loan. Like, they just don't have the financial capacity. While with an ADU, for an average price of$200,000 that you can take from your equity, you don't even need an appraisal to get a$200,000 uh home equity line of credit. They all of a sudden are cash flow and they just improve their their like their asset, like every single dollar out of those$200K that you invested in your property. That money is is your equity goes up with it. Like it's not money that you're wasting away. Like the moment that you decide to sell it, you're gonna sell it for more. So they have that cash flow, they can make ends meet, they have that additional housing. Like it eventually, once enough ADUs are built, the rental prices should start to stabilize and come down because of the supply being there. That's one of the stories. The second story is people that are either have aging parents or have adult children, and they need to go out into the world and and they want to stay close to home, but they cannot afford that starter home. It's the same problem. Like, you need to expand, you need more real estate, but like you don't have the possibility to go out there and and develop a piece of land. Like uh we're talking about millions of dollars to develop a piece of land. So here, the most expensive ADU I build has been for$500,000. The cheapest we build is around$160,000, and that's money that you can easily finance and find a place for your aging parents or find a place for your adult children and stay in the family. You stay close enough, but separated enough. And so we see a lot of that as well happening in LA, which helps also build community.
Mike Swenson
And you mentioned with the with the equity that they already have in their home, they don't have to go do anything different. It's just utilizing what's what's already there to create something that, yeah, is either income generating if you're using it as a rental, or kind of helps out on the family side, you know, for now. But then when you go to sell, you have the house and the ADU, and so you can get, you know, get a higher price for that. So yeah, it solves a lot of problems all at once.
Gil Vaisman
Absolutely. And uh and legislators found that it's very popular, they just keep reinforcing it with law. So I don't think it's going anywhere. Like personally, I just see it getting more and more popular. People, everybody has a neighbor with an ADU now. People know what ADUs are. While I started the business, a lot of the what I was talking about was educational. Now it's more like people are convinced, they just need to find the right person to do it. Like, why should I trust GoADU to be able to take over this project instead of trusting some other company? But it's not about like they don't need convincing that this is a good, smart, sound decision. And it's one of the best investments you can make if you already have the land.
Mike Swenson
Absolutely. So talk about kind of this the early days of starting your business. And so, like you said, kind of tinkered around with a few different things, landed on this, you were helping other people or advising other people for it. Talk about the process of gaining clients, getting traction, that sort of thing. You you went and got your your license to become a general contractor, but as a business owner, launching this business, kind of talk about those early days and how that started.
Gil Vaisman
The most challenging thing about starting a business is especially with something like that, is relying on the track record. So you start a brand new business, you don't have a lot of builds under your belt. So the track record that I used was like I found a business partner in someone that like had 20 years of experience building. He just did it informally under his own thing, but he would let it be, he would finish this development homes, like 3,000 square foot homes, and wouldn't take a single picture. He would just like finish the job and be done with it. So he was never marketing. And so the marketing side of it, the the storytelling side of it, that that was the biggest lesson, like giving a face to the business that people can trust, that people can um and also I saw and I asked a lot of questions about people what their fears were when hiring a contractor. Everybody has her horror stories, like the word contractor has a negative association. People hear contractor and they immediately go, is like they're gonna run away with my money, like the the the the the news pieces of companies that like defrauded people from their money or went under. And so like the good thing was like as long as you're not a complete fraud, like you have a like you're one of the good guys already.
Mike Swenson
I was gonna say, as a real estate agent, I I get the same stories, right? You know, you've got people screwing people over, lazy, you know, whatever. And so, yeah, as a real estate agent, actually, when we when we took our real estate agent licensing classes, they said like in a survey of professionals, it's like agents and used car salesmen, and then like everybody else has seen as more favorable. So I can totally see probably contractors in that same vein. You've got to prove yourself that you want to help people and you're doing good and you're reliable, right?
Gil Vaisman
Exactly. So just by doing the things that I consider being basic decency, because that's how I was raised, and uh I was raised with strong values and being a man of my word and putting my name and my reputation in the line, every build I do, and and and and all the time, like I'm constantly like I worry about my reputation uh just as much as I worry about my kids' health. And so understanding that, understanding that your word is like your most valuable asset in a business, I think that's key, and and that's how I conduct myself. And so I think that give get started giving us a leg once people started hiring us, and the recommendations were quick to come. Like people were quick to say, okay, like I found this guy, he's he's really good, he delivers on what he says, and so uh it gets easier the more you do it, but like you have to be consistent, you have to have very strong work ethic, and uh a business, you get as much as you put in. They're they're like, I don't believe in shortcuts, much less for something uh as building someone's home.
Mike Swenson
Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step? Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it? Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us. Real estate investing is what we do full time. We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors. We have the knowledge and experience to hand pick the best deals that most investors can't. Fine. We've got large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own. The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you've put down trying to acquire a property on your own. Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just did an analysis by process. To find out more, visit freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. You can book a call and learn more there. So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side. That's freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. I think about you know a couple things when when people want to get their first job out of you know high school or college or whatever it is, right? You know, they fill out their resume and they send it in, and people say, sorry, we can't hire you. We we want somebody with experience, right? And you talk about, well, how do I get experience if nobody's willing to give me experience? You know, on the investing side for us, I remember the first apartment building we put an offer in on, and they said, Well, what's your experience? What do you what do you have for experience? And at that time, I was an agent helping investors buy multifamily apartments. And so I was able to put together essentially my resume at that time was here's who I've helped buy property, and now we're buying our first property. And then fast forward to today, uh, just about a month ago, the property that we're looking at now, they said, Well, what have you done in the his in your history? Well, now I can point back to we've accumulated a handful of apartment buildings, right? So it's all that resume building that happens, but you got to start somewhere. And like you said, you relied on the experience of your partner to bring some validity into what you're doing. And then you get some good happy customers, and then now you can point back to those examples, right? So it takes time to build that traction and for people that are getting into real estate, like you have to start somewhere. So you rely on the transferable skills you have, you rely on whatever you can put together to show that resume, but then your resume gets better and better and sharper and sharper over time. To now you've got happy clients, you've got history to point people to put point people to and say, look, we've done a great job for all these past clients. Here's why it's such a great example, and here's why you should do it.
Gil Vaisman
Also, another point that I wanted to say, which is like the ugly truth, when you start, you have to find other competitive edges. And unfortunately, if you're out there starting, like you cannot be the most expensive. So, something that we did very consciously was like that first job, I needed to be cheaper than the competition in order to get the first job because like my competitive edge had to be in price. Right now, I have the luxury of not necessarily trying to be the cheapest in order to gain the the jobs because I have the track record, like it's a different competitive advantage. But when I was starting, I was like, I'm gonna cut you a deal, and that deal is gonna get me that experience so I can start charging more and more as the business grows. But as you're starting, like you gotta you gotta do it at cost sometimes, you know, just to just to get just to get started. And and so we we took some jobs for very little margins at the beginning, uh just to get the opportunity, you know.
Mike Swenson
It's building your resume. If you were an entry-level employee, you're not making the same as if you had years of experience, and so you're essentially working your hourly rate or your salary is less than it is now because now you have that experience and you have that track record and knowledge to be able to rely on of why people should hire you at that rate, right?
Gil Vaisman
Put it in the educational expense tab. It's uh it's another piece of education. Like I'm learning as I by making less money, it's money that we're living on the table that we're leaving on the table. So it's part of the educational expense. It's part of that tab.
Mike Swenson
Talk a little bit about where you guys are at today, and then maybe some plans that you have here for the future, the short-term future.
Gil Vaisman
Today we're we're we're at a good point. We're at a point where we are expanding our capacity, meaning we have a wait list of people trying to get started a few months down the road. And so we're actively trying to find more subcontractors, trying to find more workers that like we can train and uh expand that capacity so we can take on more volume without sacrificing the quality. And also we're looking to prove that our skills as ADU builders are transferable to be able to build single family homes. And we have a unique opportunity here in the LA in LA County that we have two fires and we have thousands of people that need their houses rebuilt. And so we're eager to prove that we can take on that challenge as well as builders and help rebuild those communities that were lost, unfortunately.
Mike Swenson
Absolutely a big need that's out there and and an opportunity for you to be able to meet that need.
Gil Vaisman
Absolutely. So that's kind of like the next challenge that we have as a company is it's showing that that we're able to rise up to the occasion and and and be a part of that rebuild. And so those are the challenges that I'm actively working towards. I'm I'm very excited for the future, for what 2026 has to hold. Yeah, super grateful for like everything that's happened up to now, and and super excited about uh all the opportunities that are that are gonna present themselves.
Mike Swenson
Excited to have you on, Gil, and and thank you so much for sharing your story. Interesting background, interesting way of getting in real estate. I I love those stories. Um, and then now you're you're carving out your own space and you're you're helping people, adding value, helping people you know grow their the equity in their home and and add another income stream as well as as your own business. And so excited to see where that continues for you in the future. Uh, for people that do want to reach out to you, learn more about what you're doing, have questions about ADUs, whatever that might be, how can they do so?
Gil Vaisman
The best way to find us is to go online and to goadu.com. Super easy to remember. And you have contact forms there, you have a phone number where people actually pick up the phone, can email us, and our parent company is Weisman Construction, who is gonna be doing the single family homes. That's another way we also have a website, becemandconstruction.com. Yeah, if you're in the LA market and want to reach out, it doesn't necessarily have to be because you want to build an ADU, but like I'm super happy and I I try to make time for everybody, like we whatever uh questions you might have, wherever you are in your process, we'd like to meet you at that point.
Mike Swenson
Absolutely awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on, sharing your story, adu.com reach out to you, and uh excited to see uh where this thing continues to grow.
Gil Vaisman
Absolutely. It was uh it was a pleasure being here, Mike. I hope I can provide value to your your listeners. Appreciate the opportunity.
