Real Estate News Radio with Rowena Patton

Transforming Senior Transitions: Navigating Real Estate and Assisted Living with Compassion and Innovation

July 27, 2024 • Rowena Patton

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What if you could help seniors transition to assisted living with ease and compassion, all while navigating the emotional complexities of parting with a lifelong home? This episode promises to equip you with unique insights into a niche real estate market that many overlook but is incredibly rewarding. Join me, Rowena Patton, as I share heartfelt stories and professional tips on how to simplify the home sale process for seniors using innovative programs like the Cash CPO offer.

We'll reminisce about our friend Pete Callender and his humorous slant on medical advice, bringing some lighthearted moments to an otherwise challenging topic. Discover the massive efforts needed to clear out a lifetime of possessions and the emotional hurdles families face. You'll hear personal anecdotes and practical advice on how to assist elderly clients as they move into senior living facilities, addressing both the logistical and sentimental aspects of the process.

Finally, you'll learn about the booming senior living industry and the innovative solutions designed to expedite home sales, providing peace of mind for seniors and their families. From the benefits of leasing versus buying in senior living facilities to accessing up to 70% of home equity within 14 days, this episode aims to increase your awareness and preparedness for the growing demand in this sector. Join us as we explore how to revolutionize the real estate market for the senior community.

Speaker 1:

This is the Plain English Real Estate Show with your host, rowena Patton, a show that focuses on the real estate market in terms you can easily understand. Call Rowena now. The number is 240-9962 or 1-800-570-9962. Now here's the English girl in the mountains, the agent that I would trust, rowena Patton.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. This is Rowena Patton on the Real Estate News radio show and today we are talking about assisted living. And I've got to start off by saying a lot of agents call me and go well, that's not very sexy. I don't know if I want to be involved in that Assisted living. Is that? That's not very sexy? Well, you know what, sometimes life's not sexy. So that's all I got to tell you. And there's something very, very rewarding about helping seniors move on to the next stage of their life. So it's been something that's been incredibly rewarding to me and a number of other agents who are involved. We've got eleven hundred agents now running the program around the country. It's based on the cash CPO offer, which is the base program, if you like. That allows us to offer this and it's all about. It's pretty basic. Actually, it really kind of sucks when you're in your 70s and 80s 80s is your average age to go into assisted living when suddenly you have to sell your house, You've been going home for the holidays and the kids are chit-chatting about hey mom, hey dad. It's really time we start thinking about getting you into, even if it's unassisted living. You know there are programs where it's a continuum of care and you can go in and you're basically renting a place, but meanwhile it's a much smaller place and you have to care about a whole bunch of less things than you do with a house and all the upkeep that a house involves. So I wanted to give you some of the figures today. You know we're talking about Assisted Living, cpo. You can get all the details at assistedlivingcpocom. This is Rowena Patton. For those of you who've just tuned in, I know a few of you make it just a few minutes late, that's okay. Or you're listening in from your car and you're going in and out there. So I'll keep repeating that today assistedlivingcpocom for all the details. There's a video on there that goes through it much more eloquently than I do. Oh wait, it's my video, but sometimes you know when you can hone it into two or three minutes, that helps. So there is a video on there and lots of bullet points and it is for seniors. It's to explain to seniors what that's about and how it works. It's also for facilities. So if you work for a facility and you want to get your facility on our list, there's a button there that says add facility. Go ahead and add your facility. There's questions on there. We've built a huge database already of facilities all over the country with different things that they offer so that you can compare them easily. You know what kind of price ranges, what kind of things do they offer, and you can see all of the questions on there at assistedlivingcpocom. And what's the basis of this? It's a simplified home sale process.

Speaker 2:

So you're at that stage of your life. Usually the conversations have been going on for a long time. It often happens at the holidays, if you've got family around. Maybe you don't have family around. Maybe your neighbors are a little concerned about you, maybe your best friend's a little concerned about you, and you know, maybe you've been in the hospital once or twice. Maybe somebody at the hospital is concerned about you, but your health has deteriorated somewhat. Or maybe it's memory care. You know, maybe your memory is going a little bit.

Speaker 2:

I can tell you a personal story of this little bit. I can tell you a personal story of this. It's one of the reasons I was so attracted to it when I was 20. I was actually three months before my 21st birthday. When I was a little girl, I was basically raised by my grandparents and my grandfather was the important man in my life. You've all heard me talk about him before. Both of my books are dedicated to him. There's a picture of him. So, ronald Patton, this is all for you. There's a picture of him in the front of the book. And he passed when I was 13.

Speaker 2:

And I then took care of my grandmother who had we didn't call it Alzheimer's in those days, but she definitely had memory issues that just got worse and worse over the years and because of the age I was it's between 13 and 20. Those seven years seem like decades. You know how that is, randy, like these days, when you're talking about even a decade, it doesn't seem like a decade ago. You know, they tell you when you're younger, old folks say time goes more quickly, and it's true, say time goes more quickly, and it's true. Right, it's absolutely bizarre, but I remember those, those seven years feeling like a really, really really long time.

Speaker 2:

So when I was 20 and I'd go, you know, I went off to college and all those kind of things and and I wasn't close by at that point, but I'd still come home every weekend and finally they took her into hospital for geriatric testing and it was a whole geriatric ward. I'll tell you why this is funny in a minute, because the first time I went in there I didn't know. I went up to the ward where they were doing all of this testing. That's how they did it. Then it was a great hospital Walls Grave Hospital in England. There, I'll give them a shout out. Who knows if it's great now this is a long time ago, and it's at least six years ago, right, because it was when I was 20.

Speaker 2:

So I went up to the doors and there was a couple at the door who just this nice, sweet couple and of course you know I respect my seniors, so I held the door open for them. And then a bunch of other nice couples came out as well and went wandering around and I thought, oh they're. You know, they're looking at the green space around the hospital, it's lovely. While I was letting them all escape, meanwhile all the bells go off, all the alarms go off. I probably let 20 or 30 people out. So, yeah, that was my introduction.

Speaker 2:

My grandma wasn't one of them, fortunately, and like many people who go through this, I had the most lucid conversation with her that day that I'd had in many years. So suddenly she remembered things that she wasn't remembering before, and they say that happens often right before the end of life. So of course I was looking into facilities that she could go into because she really couldn't take care of herself anymore. And then I found some nursing care and since I was a little girl, my grandparents had told me they were leaving the house to me. It was a very modest little row house, but nonetheless, how lovely, what a great start in life. And so you know, they'd always told me that and I really didn't like them saying it I have a big belief you should just spend all your money and not leave it around to past people, because a lot of them have a silver spoon in their mouth. We all know that, right, anyway? So it really upset me as a kid being told that I'm like no, I just want you to be around.

Speaker 2:

So she was in the facility and I was. She was in the hospital and I was looking facilities for her. She was in the hospital and I was looking for facilities for her. And then I found a nursing company that could come into a house and take care of her. The only way we could afford that is if I could get a mortgage on the house. Now, bear in mind I was 20. I left school early, I went to college early, so I was out of college and I was in my first job and my salary was laughable. I mean, really people get more tips than that. Now let's just say that in restaurants here, and I'm not kidding. So somehow I managed to get a mortgage enough such that I could afford to pay this company to come in and look after her, which was wonderful. And she passed a week before, four months before my 21st birthday. The reason that was important is because my granddad had set up the will to not allow me to have any of this before I was 21. So yeah, it was pretty cool, and my cousin was actually the attorney who was handling it, and we had other family members the morning of her death calling to say what's in it for me. So I faced all of this.

Speaker 2:

We've all you've been through it randy like when somebody passes in your family, it can set off a whole chain of events, a huge chain of events um in your family, and it's not fun, and right before that too, when it's not fun having conversations with your family about how it's really time for them to start thinking about a facility. So that's before we even start. When you finally make that decision, one of the hardest parts of it is getting the house ready and then selling the house because, oh my gosh, all that stuff and things, all the people, all the kids who are saying, oh my gosh, mom, please don't get rid of that, or grandma, please don't get rid of that. And you've got a whole basement full of stuff and things. Maybe it's your stuff and things, maybe it's the stuff and things that you brought from your grandma. How funny is that? Right so you've been carrying around all those stuff and things and the thought of getting rid of these stuff and things is terrifying.

Speaker 2:

And if you've got any thoughts on this or maybe you're in an assisted living or thinking about going into one, or maybe you've got parents who are being stubborn and don't want to go into assisted living give us a call 828-240-9962. If you're on Mars or maybe in a different country, 800-570-9962. And we have Parker on the line. Good morning, parker. How are you today?

Speaker 4:

Well, good morning. I just wanted to say that I had no idea, ro, why you were forced to leave England until that story about you leaving the hospital. But let me put it this way they lost our game. Aww, parker, that's so nice, I appreciate you so much, and you did make me laugh. I've got to tell you.

Speaker 2:

You know I can tell you other stories about that.

Speaker 2:

So she really was so lucid right before and she was telling me all these things I'd never heard before, all these family stories that I'd never heard. But the other interesting thing is I'd go in and I'm sure people see this who go to visit their parents or, you know, grandparents in assisted living facilities. So they all got their shoes mixed up and their clothes mixed up and they were putting logs on the electric fire, which was always interesting. And I was helping them, of course, because you know, I've always had that sort of silly imagination, but they'd be like wearing you know, I've always had that sort of silly imagination, but they'd be like wearing, you know, mismatched slippers and I thought, oh, maybe they've got it right and we've got it all wrong. You know, finally you can just let go a little bit. And the other great thing about getting older and tell me if you've ever experienced this, parker, have you ever sat down with your friends and you don't remember if you've told them that story before? No, oh, really, randy, you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3:

Of course I do Maybe my mother.

Speaker 2:

Well, maybe you don't remember that you've told them that before. That's what's funny and the great thing is no Ro, no, no, you know, what's wonderful is that your friends don't remember you've told them that story either. So you get to tell your stories for the rest of your life once you hit a certain age, whatever that certain age is, and we won't discuss that Well things happen, unfortunately.

Speaker 4:

If you have family, that can help, it's a blessing. I did have someone that I worked with whose mother-in-law lived with them and, uh, they kept trying to bring her things to read and she said honey, I just need one book. I don't remember. It's all new to me every day and that's a true story and that is from right there in nashville oh okay, well, it's adorable and what's wrong with that?

Speaker 2:

I mean you save so much money because you can just read the same now if it's a magazine and it and it's adorable. And what's wrong with that? I mean you save so much money because you can just read the same Now if it's a magazine and it's something that's topical. You know, you think that the president just dropped out over and over again for the rest of your life, which might be a little strange, or imagine in the celebrity world.

Speaker 4:

One book, one book, that's all she needed, and she was lucid enough to know it.

Speaker 2:

I love it well, parker. Thank you so much for your call today.

Speaker 4:

You really appreciate what you do. Oh, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you, england, for forcing her out and making her come to us thank you, darling.

Speaker 2:

You have a great saturday have a great day.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Oh, I'm glad I could get a chuckle out there and it really was funny. And it's been funny, you know, for at least five years, since I'm not 20 anymore, and the nurses were so mad at me I didn't know. So the old folks actually started running, they were picking up pace and they were all cramming at the door. It was really bad, but it's probably the most activity they'd had in years. Yeah, you know, and they were only running around the floor. I mean, they weren't doing anything. I'll tell you a story that we can just about talk about on the radio. Do you know STDs are highest in the population over 70? Because you go into these homes and, hey, what are you going to worry about? You may as well smoke cigarettes and cigars and drink your tipple every night, because you know, suddenly you're free every night because, you know, suddenly you're free.

Speaker 3:

Our friend, our mutual friend, pete Callender, used to say if some doctor tells me one day, well, I'm gonna look at him and say, hold that thought, I'll be right back and go buy a pack of cigarettes oh, yes, you know, I saw Pete and Christy a few weeks ago, I did too. They're doing great yeah they are doing great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they were a little worried about me there for a minute with the. You know they saw the videos going on when I had a brief hospital stay there and and uh yeah, they came up to spend the day with me. It was lovely. So thank you, pete and christy. If you're listening I know you listen frequently great, just a great couple, absolutely really awesome couple and I love both of them equally.

Speaker 2:

So back to assisted living. That was a great call from Parker there. I'm glad to bring a little chuckle to a Saturday morning, especially to a subject where, you know, agents are going on and wanting to join us all over the country. I'm doing three, four, five, I've even done eight interviews in one day because this is such a popular program. And then I do have the odd agent saying, oh, this just isn't sexy. I can't think of anything more wonderful and more fulfilling than helping somebody in their eighties get rid of all that, all those, all those things and all that stuff in the house and transition to a happier place, especially if it is a happier place, I think you know sometimes there's more opportunities, shall we say, in the more expensive ones, and a lot of people can't afford the more expensive ones and many, many people have to sell their house no surprise there to go into that facility. So that's where we come in Instead of here's what normally happens.

Speaker 2:

So Bob and Claudia are on a wait list, sometimes for years, and we've got one locally here. That's eight years and as I'm seeing more and more data come in from around the country, there's a lot of wait lists. I haven't found one yet that doesn't have a wait list. So finally, you know, bob and Claude have been calling, calling, calling sometimes for years, really wanting to get in. I mean, when you're at that age you know that time is short. Right, there we go. Not being sexy again, oh, we're all going to die someday. Just some of us get there faster than others. So you know you've got. You're much more focused on time at that point. So this waiting game thing is not fun at all.

Speaker 2:

You finally get the call and it's exciting just for a minute. Finally we're in. But you haven't thought about listing your house or selling your house because you don't know when that call is going to come. It's like when you're building a home. You may have been given a date of Thanksgiving, but that means you're probably working on Christmas because you know that things could go wrong.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it's the materials, maybe it's the staff who knows what it is? It might be the weather, but things affect that process. And of course, let's be honest a vacancy means that someone's passed and there's no timeline on that, unless you're an insurance underwriter, and they can pinpoint it by the week. Believe it or not, that's what they do. So finally you get that call and you're a little bit excited and then you go oh crap, we've got to sell the house. And you really think about what that means and, like any of us that are selling the house, you said okay, for the next six months I'm going to take a big trash bag and once a week I'm going to fill up that trash bag. I bet you did that when you moved, didn't you, randy?

Speaker 3:

Big time Several trash bags.

Speaker 2:

And how well did that when you moved, didn't you, randy, big time Several trash bags, and how well did that work when it actually came to moving.

Speaker 3:

Still a pain in the butt Just saying yeah.

Speaker 2:

I just helped a couple in their late 30s, maybe early 40s friends of mine actually, but relatively young move to another state, another adjoining state, so that's the good news and they had the biggest skip wait dumpster. That was an English word. There we call them skips. They had the biggest dumpster I have ever seen in my life and they knew they were moving for months and and they'd done just that which we all do. You know, they'd cleared out They'd had a major clear out six months earlier and a major clear out three months earlier, and then they'd spent weeks clearing out, bit by bit.

Speaker 2:

But when it came down to it, the move created the biggest dumpster I've ever seen in my life. It must have been seven or eight feet tall. I don't know how they got that thing in there. It was giant seen in my life. It must be seven or eight feet tall. I don't know how they got that thing in there. It's giant. I've really never seen anything like it. It looked like it'd come in on a big shipping container and it was full of stuff, full of stuff, and there's just two of them.

Speaker 2:

So imagine if you're in your house that your kids grew up in, you know, in the basements full. I've definitely seen a lot of houses with very, very full basements, and I've seen a lot of houses, too, that are five bedrooms with one person or maybe a senior couple living in it, where, you know, the kids are now in their 50s and 60s and the border wallpaper from the 70s and 80s is still upstairs, with the little ponies on or you know the yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Remember the borders we used to put on wallpaper? Remember wallpaper? Actually, wallpapers come back.

Speaker 3:

Wallpaper is really expensive now really yeah, everybody used to use wallpaper of some kind. You just go to the wallpaper store and there's mountains of books.

Speaker 2:

Yeah to look through, so I wasn't here when wallpaper was popular. I was in England, so the English version of Home Depot or Lowe's had lots of wallpaper. There's a whole aisle of wallpaper. Was it like that here?

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, so you bought it by the roll, but the rolls were a couple of dollars right, exactly, maybe if that oh, in the 80s I built a house in 86 and got fancy and put what's called grass cloth in the foyer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, grass cloth was way. That was probably $10 a roll.

Speaker 2:

And now you can't go look it up. You can't get wallpaper under $40 or $50 a roll. Wow, it's funny. I was just in the Imperial Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. I had a quick break over last weekend. The most traveled, allegiant flight in the country is between Asheville, direct from Asheville to Fort Lauderdale. They call it Miami, but it's Fort Lauderdale, it's absolutely Fort Lauderdale. I guess just more people know Miami. So, yeah, that's why we have so many people from Fort Lauderdale and Miami, basically South Florida, having a second home here and the other way around. So we have people here, you know want the warmth for the winter months and prices are coming down in Florida big time. By the way, zillow just dropped them by almost across the board by about 20% value. So you can. You can buy things that you can get two-bedroom condos I just saw one, a two-bedroom condo, listed in a building um for 120 000.

Speaker 3:

Two bedroom with a pool and everything else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, amazing, yeah, so you can still get bargains down. Then the bargains will be much more apparent here very soon as prices are dropping. You know, and we're going to see that across the board. It's happening almost everywhere in the country. The northeast is, in the main, you can't broad brush, but still rocking along quite a lot. And the thing about assisted living is that doesn't change. Your age is not going to change. Well, your age is definitely going to change, but the fact that you need assisted living is not going to change. Well, your age is definitely going to change, but the fact that you need assisted living is not going to change, except that it's going to increase.

Speaker 2:

If we look at some of these numbers here, the senior living industry is rapidly expanding due to the aging baby boomer population. We all know that's going on, expected to grow. Wait till you hear this. So the senior living industry primarily, we're talking about facilities, right, and these facilities are anything from independent living. That means you go in and you're usually renting an apartment. Sometimes you can buy them, but given that you're in for a relatively short period of time, then you know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to buy them generally, you You're usually effectively leasing them, but you're releasing all the money out of your home and you're getting rid of all those things that you don't necessarily want to do as you age. We might want to do them, but you know, we've all seen the gutter guard commercials where you don't want to be climbing up those ladders anymore. No need to do all that stuff, you know. So wait for this one.

Speaker 2:

The senior living industry is rapidly expanding due to the aging. Baby boomer population is expected to grow by 48% by 2050, nearly a half, and we're seeing it all over the place. So you know, I've got agents on a great program with this. Our guiding question is how do we get this opportunity in the hands of as many seniors as possible, as quickly as possible, and that guides everything we do. So if we go, ok, we want some agents in New Jersey. We ask the question is that getting this program in the hands of seniors as quickly as possible, because it's just such a great way to do it, it makes so much sense? Is that getting this program in the hands of seniors as quickly as possible, because it's just such a great way to do it? It makes so much sense. If you're 80 years old and you're moving, you can get up to 70% of your equity within 14 days and this is not one of those cash offers that's trying to take you home and take money from you. In fact, two-thirds of our sellers I'll say that again, two-thirds of our sellers make more than with a traditional listing, but there's more to it than that. So you get, on average, between 90% and 120%.

Speaker 2:

None of us can control the market. We go in. You get a big chunk of your cash out. We go in, we do our HDTV magic and then sell your home and usually we get more because, well, you've probably got a few things that need doing to your home. We go in, we do the appraisal, we do the inspection. We have a great floor plan from the appraisal. We have the correct square footage from the appraisal. We have the correct value from the appraisal. We have the correct square footage from the appraisal. We have the correct value from the appraisal that we can use to market.

Speaker 2:

And those of you who've been listening to me for the last 17 years, since I launched CPO Experts that was launched in 2007, cpo Experts that's where I've been convincing you, as sellers, that a better way to sell your home is to do the appraisal and the inspection. It doesn't matter who you are. I don't care if you're 18 or if you're 93 or 103. I hate it when we cap those numbers. Maybe you're 120. It's just a better way to sell a house and California is pretty much taking that on in most places now you have to do the inspection first. It just makes sense because everybody goes in eyes wide open. That's what this is, except now you don't have to pay for it. So here you are as the seller. We come in, we take a look and we make an offer based on the actual value of your home.

Speaker 2:

This is not one of those skeezy cash offers. I would never have got involved in it. I've never run cash offers. Like many agents run cash offers around the country. I'm not knocking it. It's a great business model if you need out quickly. Some people take 50, 60, 70% on the house and I understand that.

Speaker 2:

In fact, one of the agents in this program went to see it's um, it's uh, ashley, who is running new jersey. He's bringing in agents in all over new jersey went to see a facility and she said, oh my gosh, I wish we'd had this program um, just, I wish I'd known about this before and it wasn't for the seniors coming into her facility, although she is going to use it for that, she said. I just face this with my mom. We had to sell her house and get her money out and we let it go for less than it should have gone for because we had to do it quickly. Now, doing it that way and doing it quickly, it still means six weeks.

Speaker 2:

Even if you sell it on day one when it's listed and we all know that that in most areas in the market that's not happening right now. See, I did an intake of breath there just talking about it selling on day one it's probably going to take a month or two or three months. And if you've got a home that needs work, it's going to take even longer because your home is not competing against all the new homes or the homes that have been fully remodeled. So you know it's going to take even longer. It could easily take six months to get your money out. I'm telling everybody right now if I list your home not not through the, the cash cpr, anything else if I list your home with a traditional listing, you're going to get your cash by Thanksgiving. That's a pretty good bet. I can't guarantee it, but that's probably what is going to happen. But here's the thing With a traditional listing. And listen up, guys if you've got your home for sale right now, whatever is motivating you to move whether it's assisted living or anything else and this doesn't change you're going to get your. The only thing that changes it is how fast homes are selling in your neighborhood, and any of your agents can tell you that. You can give us a call at 828-333-4483. We can give you stats anywhere in the country. We've got 30 data points on every zip code in the country. I have to do this because I have 1,100 agents more than that now around the country running the Assisted Living, cpo and the cash offer program. So if I list your house now traditionally and this is in most places where the markets have softened a little bit by Thanksgiving, you're going to get a check 67% of the time. Now, why is that? That's because 33% of the contracts fall out. So you're going to get all excited about getting your check by Thanksgiving and then you're only going to get that check 67% of the time If you certify pre-own your home.

Speaker 2:

You can do this yourself. You don't have to do the cash offer. If you certify pre-own your home, which in most places will cost you about 900 bucks, do the inspection, do the appraisal or, at the very least, just do the inspection. It's going to cost you about 500 bucks, depending on what you've got to inspect. Some of you have radon, some of you have well, some of you have septic systems. Um, you're going to so, remember, you're going so traditional listing, old-fashioned listing you're going to get it a check 67% of the time.

Speaker 2:

If you certify pre-owned your home ie basics do the inspection, even if it's listed now. Do the inspection. You're going to get a check 93% of the time. Let me repeat that, thanksgiving you're going to get a check with an old-fashioned listing 67% of the time. With a certified pre-owned listing, you're going to get a check 93 percent of the time. Why? Because the thing that causes the 33 percent or more of the contracts to fail is the inspection and the appraisal. It doesn't appraise or the inspection comes back with lots of items on it and then you're into, you're just negotiating all over again, and this is weeks after you've gone under contract. So if you've done it up front and you give.

Speaker 2:

The best way to do it I've found over all these years of doing it and I'm at over 3,500 transactions is that you just give that inspection report over to the buyers that have put an offer in and say listen, take this into account, we priced the home taking all of these things into account, we fixed this, we haven't fixed this. You can notate it all on the inspection report and you know we priced it accordingly. And then they're not going to most of the time, they're not going to negotiate with you trying to get money off the deal, which is awesome. Now put that scenario into being 80 years old and doing this. So now you've got the call that you're going into assisted living and I tell you well, you should get a check 67% of the time by Thanksgiving. Or, if you pay for the inspection and the appraisal, you're going to get a check 93% of the time.

Speaker 2:

Most people would say that's a flipping no-brainer. Let's get the you know, especially if you're in a facility at this point and paying for it. So why wouldn't you do that? Well, we also have the cash CPO, which is what powers assisted living CPO, whereby we can come in, take a look at what needs doing, make you that offer and it's a full market value offer. Guys, if your home is worth 650,000, we will offer 650,000, because usually we can add a good percentage to your home and make you even more money. And then you're going to get up to 70% depending on how much work needs doing.

Speaker 2:

So if your home is a complete overhaul, yes, we'll put a new roof. I've done a new roof, I've done a new septic and we're doing these all over the country. Our funding partner has been doing this since 2017. They buy thousands of homes. So you know we get it all tickety-boo and then we do cosmetic as well, so it might be new countertops. Maybe you've got old formica countertops and maybe all the homes around you are remodeled, so you're not seeing that, that uptick.

Speaker 2:

Maybe most of the homes have had the basements finished. We did one that was purchased at 425, which was the going rate, put 75 in and sold it for 650 because of all the square footage added downstairs. That was just obvious because we had all the comparables that showed it was worth so much more when the basement was finished out. So whether it needs work or not, it's going to need something because you're going to have that inspection done. Even if you're saying I've been maintaining my home, you know I have the people come in and look at the air conditioning every year or once every quarter.

Speaker 2:

Whatever it is, I promise you when they do that inspection there's going to be a bunch of things that need doing. It just is what it is. So now put yourself back to being in your 70s, in your 80s it depends on what's going on in your family. Maybe you need some memory care help. In fact, we have a very good friend, randy and I, mike blanton, who used to have a show he's now retired that had a very young wife that got alzheimer's. I think it was alzheimer's, it was some kind of memory thing. It was alzheimer's in her 50s.

Speaker 2:

I believe she was 56 or 57 susan great lady yeah yeah, sad, sad, sad case and we, we wondered what was happening, because he, he was doing everything on his. We didn't know that of course he was doing everything on their bucket list because he kept disappearing and going on all these fabulous trips. They traveled a lot, yeah, because they knew that that she, she was afflicted with that and it was very it's, you know, like, like it's very mild at first and they traveled all over the place, but it can happen very early sadly.

Speaker 3:

Yes it can, yes, it can.

Speaker 2:

And then, I believe, she went into a facility.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And she passed about four years later, am I right? So not that many years later, which is just amazing. At that age, you know, it seems to be happening younger and younger. So who knows what a lot of people we can go into. We should probably have a whole show about the long-term care insurance that some people have too because it's expensive. We really do and we can help you with all of that because we now have agents who have become experts. They are assisted living CPO experts and they're going to help you with maybe staging, and you know you don't have to worry about any of that because you're getting up to 70%. Now, if your home's a complete overhaul like maybe you've been a hoarder and we can't get in there, and it needs a new roof and a new septic and and um, I don't know new garage doors, we need to spend a hundred thousand dollars on it. You'll probably get 50 percent up front and then we'll go in hgtv, magic it and flip it on your behalf and then you get another check. You know, so two-thirds of the time you're going to make more than with a traditional listing. But I want you to remember again how it's.

Speaker 2:

An agent described to me the other day who was in his 30s and I said when was the last time you sold a house? He said a couple of years ago. I never want to do it again. I said why You're an agent? They said it's brutal. You've got to take the kids out, you've got to take the dogs out, you've got to take your wife out. You've got to make your house show ready all the time. Who wants to live like that? A few of you do, but most of us don't. That's not fun. And you have to be out for an hour. You don't know when the people have gone or not. You've got people poking around your house and then you go into contract and then you're only going to get that check 67% of the time months later Because it's got to go through all of that closing. Months later because it's got to go through all of that closing.

Speaker 2:

And then they do the inspection and then we see requests all the time from the buyers saying, especially as we're switching over to a buyer's market here in many places in the country and we're going to see that for the next three to five years. So we see many requests for ten thousand20,000. We even had one for $40,000 this year $40,000 repair request. And you know, especially if you're getting divorced or you're moving to another state, maybe you're moving to be by the grandkids or maybe you're going into assisted living. You're kind of over a barrel at that point and you may be sitting at home saying, well, I'd never give into that. Most people do because they're just done with it.

Speaker 2:

It's so brutal, the old-fashioned way of doing real estate, that a lot of people just give in because they don't want to go through that again. It's not fun. I wish as an agent I could tell you it's a thrill selling your home. It's really why I jumped on the whole cash offer piece, because two-thirds of the time you get more and you don't go through the hassle. Think of it like enterprise. I explained it like this the other day. So enterprise is a car rental company. There's lots of other car rental companies. What do enterprise do differently and why do they eat up most of the insurance market? Ie, when you have damage, your insurance company is going to recommend enterprise. Why? Because they can pick you up and they drop you off.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right, they take the pain out of it. When you have an accident, the last thing you want to do is call around all your friends and say can you drop me off at the rental car place? It's awful. Yeah, how miserable.

Speaker 3:

They come get you. That's genius Enterprise.

Speaker 2:

And it's genius enterprise and it's so. And does it cost them more money? Absolutely, but they own the insurance market because they're taking that pain out of renting a car. Now there are rental car companies they're a little bit of pain sometimes maybe. I just had mine in the shop and enterprise here locally were amazing. Only the smoky Park Highway branch. I'm not going to mention the other ones, but they don't pick up the phone for days. Smoky Park Highway amazing, just amazing, and it's only five minutes out of town. They were just great, they were so nice. I had a quick trip to Florida. My car was in the shop, they called me, they called the insurance company. They were just absolutely amazing. So I'm going to give them a shout out.

Speaker 2:

So the cash CPO offer, which is what powers assisted living, cpo and all of the other programs that we run for this is like that. It's still selling your house, it's still listing your house. It's just that you don't have to go through the pain of listing your house. We come in with an offer. Why wouldn't you do this, even if you're listed right now? By the way, you can go and get an offer on your house. If you're, maybe you're going into assisted living. Maybe you're listed right now. Maybe you're not listed right now.

Speaker 2:

Assisted living CPO like Charlie Peter Orange Is that right, randy? It's good enough. Charlie Peter Orange Stands for certified pre-owned, because we do the inspection and the appraisal for you. We pay for it up front. Our funding partner pays for it up front. So, again, it's taking all that brutality out of listing home. If you've got it listed already and you're just over it, and you've got it listed already and you're just over it and you want it to be gone and you want a chunk of cash now, see, that allows you to make a non-contingent offer anywhere in the country or wherever you go out of the country, for that matter. If you just want your money now and you're tired of these people traipsing through your house, if you're an agent listening, you can put it in on behalf of your buyers till you still get paid your commission. It still all works. It's just we're like the HGTV magic team that come in, spruce it all up, do all those things that you don't want to do as sellers or you're thinking about doing it as sellers.

Speaker 2:

I've got a lot of people saying, hey, call me again in August because I really want to list with you. I've been listening to you for years and I know how you list a home and get them sold. Don't wait, we've crested already, guys. 18 months, two years ago, we crested in this market. Now that doesn't mean to say I keep seeing agents locally. I saw a newspaper article just last week that, oh, asheville's fine, asheville's different. Do you know how many agents I coach agents all over the country? Do you know how many times I hear that their market is different and it won't happen in their market. It happens in all of our markets, just like it did last time around. We went down just over 30% here, and that was the national average. Texas and Florida are seeing huge drops right now, especially in key areas and it's the over-inflated areas.

Speaker 2:

If you're interested in your zip code and what it's doing, give us a call. Give us your zip code 828-333-4483, with people standing by 24-7. All you have to do is give your zip code, give you a full address, if you can. We'll get a value and a cash offer for you. You don't have to do anything with it. We're not going to call you on a daily basis going oh, have you looked at it yet Do you want it?

Speaker 2:

When you ask for a home value, we give you a cash offer because we give you a cash offer based on your home value. There's no reason not. If you're looking at a home value, you're usually looking to sell. Sometimes you're just poking around wondering what it would be, but a preliminary cash offer really underlines that that's really what the market would fetch, because we've done the research for you. We're not just using some automated thing or you know the big Z thing that you go look at. Everybody goes look out for the house. That's not what we're doing. We're really investigating the value, which is very important. So if you are a senior and you're on a wait list, I want you to go to Assisted Living CPO Charlie Peter Orange, assistedlivingcpocom and just click on the cash get offer button if you work for a facility or you know a facility and if you do, I want you to just text them right now and say hey, I heard this gal on the radio, the english girl in the mountains, talking about assisted living, and you can get your assisted living on there free. There's no charge to it. We're just building that list around the country.

Speaker 2:

Why are we doing that so that seniors can more easily compare. There are sites already. However, those sites are based on paying members usually, or you know a group of companies that are on there. They don't feature all of them. This is all of them because we're doing it free. And why are we doing that? It's a Google form. We get it free. It's an added benefit to our seniors. Remember that guiding question Are we getting this program in the hands of as many seniors as quickly as possible? Didn't you have a call in from George this week, randy? I believe so. Remember our guiding question are we getting it in the hands of seniors as quickly as possible?

Speaker 5:

Good morning, Ro. It's George. I just wanted to say that I am thankful that you helped us for years when we were thinking of assisted living. It's hard to watch your wife start forgetting things. And finally, with the wandering anew, and although it was still very hard, we couldn't have done it without your help. Thanks again.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you George. Oh, my gosh. So I've been through that myself. I've watched other people go through it. I mentioned the one locally where we did the 425, put 75 in, and you know that had been going on for a long time and it doesn't happen overnight, is the thing it's. It's almost funny at first. You know the. The person is wandering up and down the street going in other people's mailboxes and it's somewhat funny at first, and other people's mailboxes and it's somewhat funny at first and then it becomes not funny.

Speaker 2:

And that happened to my grandmother. She was wandering it's all funny after the fact, right. So she was wandering and this is in Coventry, england. So it's like Detroit in the States. It's where all the cars were built. So it was flattened in the war like Hamburg because a lot of the cars were made there. So a lot of the very historic city was flattened.

Speaker 2:

So my grandmother would leave her little row house and go wandering down through little narrow entries and I guess in American terms it would be about three blocks down to where she got her pension. So in England in those days maybe it's still the same, I've no idea. I left 27 years ago. You used to go to the post office to get your pension. The thing is, she'd wake up in the middle of the night in her nightie and her big zip-up gown and go wandering in her slippers down to the post office, banging on the door, making all kinds of insults at the people that weren't inside about how they didn't give her a pension or how they'd closed up too early and she didn't get a pension. The thing is that starts becoming dangerous, obviously, and especially when you need memory care, if the other person is still around. My grandfather had already passed and it may be that she'd lost some of her memory beforehand. Um, but again, you don't even notice it in the beginning.

Speaker 2:

So my grandmother, I, as I got older so 16, 17 I had a boyfriend, like a long-term boyfriend, and I would take him to my because I still wanted to go to see my grandmother, and this is right before college, and I'd go on a Sunday and spend the Sunday with her. He'd come with me, so he'd drive me over there, and one day we went in and we hadn't been the Sunday before, for some reason. We went in and she pulled a whole chicken out of the oven. She pulled two whole chickens out of the oven and put it on the plates on the table in front of us. The problem is that she cooked them the week before Now. She was still perfectly able to take care of herself and she was fine. But it was at that point I really knew that I actually moved back in with her, that I really had to do something. And you know what do you do? Because she's like honey. Do you like the chicken? I had to get the grocery bag out of the drawer and slip the entire chicken in the grocery bag, an entire chicken on both our plates in the grocery bag, and put it under the table.

Speaker 2:

Like all kinds of funny things start happening. And the beginning they're just irritating because they start forgetting their keys and along with memory loss sometimes comes anxiety, irritation and anger. So you can imagine when you I can imagine when, because I watched it at a very early age with my grandmother for seven years when you're losing your memory, imagine how frustrating that is. It's frustrating for all of us. You know when we can't find our phone. How frustrating is that. Or we can't remember a name, when we meet someone and we can't remember their name. Now, for some of us that's been happening all our lives. But right, it's kind of irritating and I think the more and more that happens you can only imagine how mad you would get yourself. And then you're living with somebody who's irritable, and I do know that often.

Speaker 2:

So I looked this up when I had some clients actually who were going through this and she had she, she was not the one suffering, she was taking care of her husband. She started having heart problems and apparently it's very common for the caregiver now the caregivers normally in their 70s and 80s too, the caregiver who's watching this person, who's who often they've been with for many years of their life suddenly decline. Well, not suddenly decline, but decline little bit by little bit and eventually, you know, they put it out of their minds. They don't want to believe this is happening. Oh, it's just old age, oh, it's just that's normal, you know. And for them, often they start getting all kinds of medical issues going on. Often the stress brings that on or maybe lifting the person. It's a terrible thing. So obviously that's another thing that assisted living can help with. Let's give you some facts about what's happening there.

Speaker 2:

Now, of course, when we say assisted living, the reason I made the name of the offer assisted living. Cpo is that most people recognize assisted living. It's the most common term. It's not always assisted living. It can be independent living, it can be assisted living. It can the most common term. It's not always assisted living. It can be independent living, it can be assisted living can be memory care. It can be skilled nursing. There are lots of places that have all of the levels. They call that the continuum of care.

Speaker 2:

Of course, you know, as this market is booming. If you were listening in at the beginning, you'll know it's growing by 48% by 2050, which sounds like a long time away, but it isn't. It's absolutely booming because of the aging baby boomer population and it's in extremely high demand. So they're expecting the actual demand for senior living facilities to double by 2040, double. So think about that. We've got thousands and thousands and thousands of them.

Speaker 2:

By the way, if you're an agent, you've got 30 within 30 minutes drive of your home or office. I have. I found that to be true everywhere in the country where I've brought agents on If you're interested, if you're an agent or you know a real estate agent and you know they're gifted at working with seniors and they have a big heart and they want to help seniors, pass this on to them assistedlivingcpocom. If they say it's not sexy, tell them not to go on there and not to sign up, because we want people with a heart. There's a button right there that says agents, join us. They just sign up for an interview and I talk to them and we see whether they're a fit or not to help the seniors. But you know there's a lot of them, my gosh. So you know technology. There's a lot of technology going on. 65% of them are now using electronic health records, which is incredible.

Speaker 2:

So just economic impact in itself. The industry is big time for the US, is big time for the US economy. So it's created over 1.2 million jobs and you can see how a lot of skilled people are necessary in these facilities because you need, you know, more nurses, more care per patient than in a lot of other medical environments. So that's a massive economic impact. Obviously, it's heavily regulated, so you can see scores on all of these places. It's heavily regulated to ensure those high standards of care by the government. Are there ones that escape sometimes and don't give those? Of course that happens in everything and we've got a lot of funding challenges.

Speaker 2:

So the average monthly cost is $4,300. And I'd say that's pretty inexpensive compared to a lot of them that I've seen. It's very common to see $6,000, $7,000, especially when you want any level of care. It's very common to see $6,000, $7,000, especially when you want any level of care, and that's a month. So you're basically renting a unit. It could be almost a studio bedroom or apartments that you know they have one bedrooms, usually occasionally two bedrooms for people that want that office, and that's more in the independent living and they go up through the scales. But it's not uncommon to see $6,000 dollars a month. That doesn't sound like a lot in the beginning but you know you, that's eighty thousand for ten months. If it's eight thousand a month, right, so that's 90, it's nearly a hundred thousand dollars a year and it could be more than that depending on what other care you need.

Speaker 2:

But the the great thing of it, of course, is that when you actually go into assisted living, you're getting that personalized care and you know you've got that independence when you first go in. However, you've got the ability to move up through your needs should anything happen, god forbid. But hey, we're all getting older, right, and it's a massive relief for families. We can't forget that your family are worried about you. They're in a different area often and they're worried about you.

Speaker 2:

You're getting more nutritious meals Now. Some of you cook really well yes, I know that, I hear you. However, the meals are cooked for you. You can go and most times, even when you're in an independent living, you can go and enjoy that meal at lunchtime or go and enjoy your dinner. You know whatever meal plan that you choose, but at least you can have a decent meal a day with other people around you. And I hear people all the time going. I don't want to be around all those old people you know the 80 year old saying that and once they get into a facility, they have fun Most times, like just getting into that environment again. You know you've got people around, it can be fun and obviously transportation is provided. It's very adaptable and can adapt to changing needs in most cases now. So assistedlivingcpocom. Assistedlivingcpocom. This is Rowena Patton. Thanks for listening today and I hope you'll join us soon. This has been the Plain Englishcom. This is Rowena Patton. Thanks for listening today and I hope you'll join us soon.

Speaker 1:

This has been the Plain English Real Estate Show with Rowena Patton. Visit Rowena and post your questions at radioashvillecom or call her at 828-210-1648.

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