SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — On his podcast and frequent social media posts, a Northern California man dreamed of becoming a billionaire by selling tiny homes. But now, his offices are closed and hundreds of customers across the country are wondering where their money went.
“I think that becoming a billionaire is a worthy goal because in order for that to happen, I’m going to have to become a completely different version of who I am today,” said Colton Paulhus.
For someone who loves to appear on social media, Paulhus has been very difficult to reach. And many people want to talk to him – customers, employees, contractors, and several hard money lenders to whom he owes money.
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After more than 20 years of teaching, Margot Simpson is planning for retirement. She told the I-Team’s Dan Noyes, “I’m deaf with cochlear implants and a teacher of the deaf in Hayward.” To make some extra money, she thought she had a perfect spot for an ADU or “accessory dwelling unit.” She took us to her backyard. “I have a thousand square-foot house on a ten thousand square-foot lot.”
She wanted to move a renter from her spare bedroom to the ADU, to make space for one of her students she is fostering.
Simpson hired Anchored Tiny Homes to build the ADU and gave them $28,000 to start, but it’s all gone.
She cried, “Well, it’s my retirement.”
Their offices in Fair Oaks closed before she could even break ground. Last week, Noyes spotted tiny home plans sitting on the floor and missed delivery notices at the door.
Dan Noyes: “Where’s your foster daughter staying now?”
Margot Simpson: “She stays in my bedroom. I sleep here.”
Noyes: “On the chair?”
Simpson: “In the chair. So, that’s fine but the ADU was supposed to solve that.”
Simpson says she felt comfortable hiring Anchored Tiny Homes because of its online pitch as “the nation’s leading custom ADU company.”
Its CEO Colton Paulhus said on the Deeper than Dough podcast, “And so, I went to my dad the next day. I said, ‘Hey, do you think we could build tiny homes?'”
Thirty-three-year-old Paulhus told the story on podcasts and social media – how he started the company in 2019 with his brother, Austin, and father, Scott, a general contractor. This excerpt is from Gathering the Kings: “We signed $100 million of customers.”
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We wanted to know, with so much money coming in, why would the company shut down? None of the Paulhuses – Colton, Austin, or Scott – would return the I-Team’s calls, texts, or emails, so we stopped by their homes last week.
No one came to the gate at the father’s house in Granite Bay. Austin Paulhus’s house nearby was freshly rehabbed; still had construction materials in the driveway. Anchored’s former chief operating officer Chris Pace tells us, that the father and sons often used the company’s subcontractors for personal projects when they were supposed to be building tiny homes.
“I pulled them back,” said Pace. “And I caught a lot of flak for that because they were supposed to be at Austin’s house doing remodeling. And I’m like, doesn’t matter. We take care of our clients first, like hire your own, basically get in line with everyone else.”
Austin pulled up when we were there and declined to answer any questions.
Noyes: “What do you say to the people who’ve lost their life savings?”
Austin Paulhus: “Can you leave, please?”
Next stop, the CEO of Anchored Tiny Homes, Colton Paulhus. We stopped by his house in Folsom once and then a second time after his truck had returned.
His wife answered the door and told us that Colton was not at home at the time.
Colton Paulhus did speak to the ABC station in Sacramento last month, saying, “I just want to kind of humbly come on here and say that I’m sorry to everybody.” He said the company grew too fast and took on too much debt. “We couldn’t pay contractors on time just due to the explosive growth. And it leaves, obviously, jobs being stopped at this point.”
The Contractors State License Board has launched an investigation into Anchored Tiny Homes and allegations of “abandonment, departing from trade standards, failing to timely pay a subcontractor, receiving/requesting more money than work completed” and more.
A new Facebook group called “Scammed by Anchored Tiny Homes” counts more than 60 customers, subcontractors and franchisees who have lost a combined $5.5 million. But the company’s former COO tells me, they actually left 450 customers stranded when they shut down.
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“To me, this is about two-thirds arrogance and overconfidence and ego,” Pace said. “And it’s a third really bad business practice.”
On Monday, Paulhus sent ABC7 News a letter, saying they’re filing “personal chapter 7 for all officers of the company… We have painfully tried all our efforts to restore the company that we all had high hopes for.”
Pace says that Colton Paulhus spent money on things that had nothing to do with building tiny homes, such as three staff at $100,000 a year each to work on his podcast. “When I was asked to lay off 25% of the staff, I was very clear that the first people that needed to go were his podcasting team and he said, ‘No, no, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to worry about that.'”
Colton fancied himself as some kind of self-improvement influencer and motivational speaker. And he used social media to show his lavish lifestyle – his four-times-a-year vacations, his new home, his interest in exotic cars.
He said on one social media post from an LA car dealer, “One day, I’ll trade in the Bentley for that.”
Paulhus posted a picture of the $250,000 luxury SUV he bought in 2022, and later wrote, “Random question but who can do an oil change for my Bentley? Seems like nobody can besides the dealership in Walnut Creek.”
“Why becoming a billionaire is so important to me.” And he discussed his mission to become a billionaire. “I think that becoming a billionaire is a worthy goal because in order for that to happen, I’m going to have to become a completely different version of who I am today.”
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A records search shows that Paulhus began taking out very high-rate loans from hard money lenders – eight of them filed liens against the company last month, and two have filed lawsuits. In one deal from March, Paulhus received $500,000 and agreed to pay back $725,000 over just nine months. The lender is suing Paulhus for breach of contract.
Noyes: “Did he give you an idea of the amount of interest that he was having to pay?”
Pace: “Yeah, at one point I heard a term $800,000 a month. In my estimation, Colton was always swinging for a home run, and the ball was never being pitched.”
Left in the lurch are retired Teamster truck driver, Steve Boldway, and his wife, Pina. They wanted to rent a tiny home to traveling nurses in Napa but Anchored stopped paying the subcontractors in the middle of the project. They lost $65,000 and are using their own money to finish it.
Noyes: “How do you feel about what happened?”
Steve Boldway: “Hurt, angry. Went through all the emotional roller coaster.”
Pina Boldway: “I feel awful for the rest of the people. There’s so many of us, not just us, so many.”
Including his employees, Paulhus faces a lawsuit for unpaid commissions and wages. And his subcontractors, including interior designer, Jessica Cathey. She tells us Paulhus owes her $79,000, what amounts to her life savings.
“There are hundreds of clients left with either a hole in the ground or a wall half built or no permit at all and they’ve paid in full,” Cathey said. “And there are so many different family stories. It just, it breaks my heart.”
The I-Team has confirmed that some Anchored Tiny Homes customers have complained to the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office and the FBI. Colton Paulhus tells us by text that neither agency has contacted him at this point. He also denies that his company did anything illegal.
Take a look at more stories and videos by the ABC7 News I-Team.
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