Transitioning to Assisted Living

This is episode number 286 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another live episode here on The Homeowner Show. How you doing, Kev?

Well, you know what, I'm gonna make it. It's been a long couple of days, but I'm Man, as long as it stops raining, I think I'll be fine.

Dude, my wife was out helping clean people's houses out today.

Oh, I doubt it.

I mean, everybody in the studio tonight knows River Plantation, right?

Oh, yeah.

So there was one family in particular that she was telling me about that they moved into a street, new family. They've been there less than a year. And everyone on the street told them, hey, don't worry about getting flood insurance because this street only flooded during Harvey, so it should never ever happen again. And sure enough, it happened just now. And that's the story I keep hearing is all these people that didn't have flood insurance. And part of the reason they didn't have— a lot of these people didn't have flood insurance was because it was costing them like $700 a month for flood insurance.

Yeah. Because it's one of those deals where if it's in a floodplain, now you're paying a premium because that's more almost double. Well, probably not quite that what you would be paying if it wasn't in a floodplain for the year.

Right. Yeah. It's nuts, man. It's, it's, it's, it's super sad. And some of these are like families that just have nothing.

Right.

And like, the one she was telling me about today was a single-story home. I mean, like, you know, if you, if you have a 2-story home and it floods, you can move a lot of your possessions up to the second floor. And, and you might be able to recover. You just got to remodel the downstairs, get all the wet stuff out, and just, right, you know, new floors and all that kind of good stuff. But, um, man, it's, it's just, it's crazy.

It's sad. I mean, the, the, the crazy thing is you've got a scenario where it's, um, you know, it, it only— I say it only rained in comparison to what happened for— with, with Harvey, for example. Uh, what, like 12 to 15 inches, something like that, which is a fourth of what it did during Harvey. But it came down pretty quickly and they had to release the dam and they weren't prepared. And once they have to release the dam, it's— man, it's just, it's been really bad. Yeah, this—

the San Jacinto River Authority has no friends right now.

No.

And like, they can do—

ask a question.

They can't do anything right.

That's the problem. So let me ask you, because here's the thing, I have this idea. I, I play a little bit probably devil's advocate on this because I look at it and I go, okay, the, the people in the Resendizano River Authority, I don't assume they're, they're idiots.

Sure.

They got there for a reason. They know what they're doing. They— this isn't their first rodeo. They've got all sorts of variables they're having to play with and figure out what, what, what about this? What about this? If I do this, what if I release too much water and now there's not enough water in the lake? Like, what if all these super amazing— and, and then, hey, it's supposed to rain. How much? Well, they say this much. Okay, it's, it's all of these variables that they have to play with.

Mhm.

And whatever they do, someone's going to be pissed off.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I don't know how they win. And I don't— again, I don't know these people. I don't know how their job works. I have zero— I'm completely ignorant on this idea. I've never, I've never lived on the lake. I don't have a boat. Like, I don't know any of this stuff. But as I'm looking at it, I'm going, these guys surely aren't morons. And yet—

You assume quite a lot.

Every— I know. And yet everybody, you know, hates them right now. And I get it. Like, what are you supposed to do when your home has flooded for the 3rd time in 7 years because of this problem? And or some people it's flooding for the first time whenever someone said your house should never flood, you know what I mean? It's not in a quote-unquote floodplain, and yet it's flooded because of the, the cresting that's happened in San Jacinto. So I don't know, man, like, what the— legitimately, do you know, like, who wins in this? Like, how do you win?

So I, I know a little bit. It's like one of those deals, I know enough to get myself into trouble. It's, it's So like what makes it complicated around here, for those of you watching online, we've got Sean Medlin in the studio, by the way. Feel free to chime in on this at any time. Not that you want to be talking about San Jacinto River Authority. Here's the thing is water in Houston is complicated.

Of course.

Do you guys remember the drought that like took Conroe where like boats were sitting in mud and all that kind of stuff? So That caused a lot of homeowners to sue the city of Houston. Do you know why?

No.

Because a lot of people don't realize that Lake Conroe is a reservoir for Lake Houston, and Lake Houston is a reservoir for city proper.

Yeah.

And so when there was a drought, city of Houston started drawing on Lake Houston.

Gotcha.

And when Lake Houston started getting drawn on, well, they said, well, nuts to that, we're going to draw on our reservoir. and pulled all the water out of Lake Conroe. And so people— that had never happened before because we hadn't had a drought like that in decades. And so all these people who had built these multimillion-dollar houses on Lake Conroe, all of a sudden they're, you know, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 boats sitting in the mud, and they're looking for somebody to blame and to hold responsible. And so they start seeing— they understood the chain of command.

Sure.

So they start suing the city of Houston. For like, hey, why'd you ruin my property?

Right.

So it gets complicated. But you can't have it both ways.

Right.

So now it's like, okay, so now who gets to make the call on whose property gets flooded when you open the dam and the spillway from these reservoirs? Well, when the San Jacinto River Authority opened those floodgates, well, it started flooding Kingwood. Well, what's on Kingwood? That's Lake Houston.

Lake Houston.

And so it's, it's like the exact reverse is happening where like we're dumping water outta Conroe, but it's flooding Kingwood.

Right. Yeah. And so, dude, there's still some places down there that are like, the roads are closed and stuff like that. I mean, it's crazy.

Oh dude, I was, I was at a house today that is really, really nice house. The boat dock, you couldn't even see it. It was at least 3 feet underwater still.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, there's the, um, over here on, on 105, there's the golf court and the golf range, which floods all the time.

Right.

But they put in like new, um, new hitting stations and they put TVs in there and the TVs are probably toast. They're probably 6 foot off the ground at least.

Right.

Maybe 7 because you're hitting and all this kind of stuff. They were, they were underwater.

Yeah. I don't doubt it.

And, and again, it's a TV. I'm not worried about it. I'm just talking about the level.

The level of it. Yeah.

That, that's It, it's crazy, dude. Absolutely crazy.

Anyway, I was, I was actually like, I mean, technically out of the country. Did you guys stay dry during this whole thing?

We did.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We— I mean, yeah, I mean, our house is, is high and dry as far as that goes, but I mean, it's satur— everything's saturated, you know. But we— I think it— I think at my house we had at least 12 inches come down.

So here's, here's a good lead-in question for Sean.

Oh boy.

Since we're talking about flooding, what What would— I mean, like, I assume you guys have protocols in place if high water comes to your facilities.

Yes.

What do you guys do? Well, not that it's ever happened, but—

Well, first of all, hang on, before I answer that question, Mr. Craig, thank you guys for having me on your show again.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Holy cow. You know, I've, I've been—

Triple crown.

It is a triple crown. A 3-time guest. 3-peat, man.

A 3-peat.

I love that. So, uh, in fact, I you guys probably don't know this. The very first time I was on your show was probably like in 2019. That was my very first podcast to ever be on.

That's awesome.

And so, you know, you always remember your first, right? And so you guys—

Maybe not fondly, but—

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

But man, you know, a lot has changed since 2019.

Yeah.

And it's been a lot. But to answer your question, yeah, we've got protocols in place. We lost power a couple days in a row and—

Oh, really?

That was kind of interesting because we don't have our generator in yet.

Okay.

In the new—

Oh, in the new facility.

The new facility.

Okay.

And I found myself running out to get food for residents because, you know, the staff couldn't cook.

Right.

And thank goodness that H-E-B carries that. You know, they power— they've got a huge generator.

They do.

Yeah. And so they were, you know, business as usual. And I just went to the barbecue place and Nice.

Load me up.

It's pretty good barbecue, by the way.

It is good barbecue. Yeah, it is. In fact, the residents were all like, hey, we're going to need you to do this.

Can this be a regular?

Yeah, it's the brisket beans.

It is the brisket beans.

Oh my gosh.

So anyways, is this like—

I've never had this. Is this like baked beans with brisket in it?

Yeah.

Okay.

It is very legit. And it is— and you know me and barbecue, like, I'm all over the place. Kevin has a spreadsheet.

I do. Wow.

We actually had one of our listeners request a spreadsheet once.

Yeah.

You can't be telling people that. Now more people are gonna be asking.

They requested it. That didn't mean anything. But anyway, so, but their brisket beans may be the best beans that I've ever had. They're that good. That's saying something. They're pretty good. But so you had to, you had to go out and get food for them and everything.

Yeah.

That made you feel good. I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And here's the thing. So I don't know if everybody knows, Tell, tell people real quick, what do you do? I know it's a very broad question, but specifically with some residents.

Yeah.

So I'm founder and CEO of a company called Seasons Assisted Living and Memory Care. We have 3 locations, one in Navasota, one in Conroe, and then our newest location in Magnolia on 1488. We built that one from the ground up.

That was awesome, by the way.

Thank you, man. It was the project that would never end. And, you know, if you ever want to just use me as a case study for bad things that could happen, And, you know, dude, I always just— crazy things happen in my world, you know?

Yeah.

And they're always learning experiences. But, you know, it's crazy. But anyways, yeah, you know, we care for people, right? I mean, there are people who are living in our facilities and, you know, we navigate it, but we, you know, we've got different protocols in place for, you know, high water or, you know, for flooding. And, you know, knock on wood, I've never had to evacuate because that would be interesting.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, we've got, you we got some healthy folks, but then we got folks in wheelchairs or in bed. And, you know, we got, you know, several that have Alzheimer's. And so that would be tricky. We have a plan, but it's, you know, I never wanna hit that red button.

Oh, yeah. That's, that's a big button to hit for sure.

Yeah.

100%.

Well, and many of these folks have, have family nearby.

Yeah.

And so navigating not just doing what's best for the resident, but also probably what what their family member wants you to do.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

And now you're navigating a whole nother side of things where it's like, hey, we're evacuating. This is the best thing for our resident. And, you know, their daughter over here is going, I need you to bring her to my house. And you're like, ah, don't know how to— I don't know how that works. Right? That's a big, that's a big thing.

Yeah. It is a big thing. And so, yeah, I mean, especially with, you know, flooding and things like that. Yeah. Um, And, you know, we made it through a big freeze. When was that? Like in '21, '22? I mean, that was, that was an interesting experience. But we, my team is really good at navigating stuff like that. And I'm really proud of the way they handled it. And, you know, I'm just ready. I'm happy to see the water finally starting to subside a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think at this point, the forecast is looking good for that.

But yeah, I kept seeing posts from, again, like we were out of town. And so like it was, It was interesting watching it from far away.

Yeah.

One, because we have all our animals and livestock here that we're just in complete disillusion as to what's even happening with them. And we're having to rely on other people to tell us like, oh yeah, this is fine. Oh yeah, they're fine. We found them. Okay, they're good. All that kind of stuff. But just the— and I can't imagine what's going through people's heads as the waters continue to rise. And you'd like to think that you're prepared, but that's one of those deals that even having processes and protocols in place, you're at the mercy of what's happening. And a lot of times it's like sometimes plans just get thrown away.

It's unknown too. Yeah, it's so unknown often. It's like, look, we think this is going to happen, And then whenever it starts happening, it's like, how bad is it gonna get? If we're right here, if it gets no worse, we're okay.

Right.

And then, you know, there's a tipping point somewhere, and, and that's where protocols come into place, obviously. But it's still a, it's still a hairy situation.

100%. Yeah. My heart goes out to those that are, you know, flooding like this. I mean, like, Craig, you were mentioning, you know, someone in a single-level home. I mean, dude, That's devastating.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's, that's truly devastating and it's very disruptive and, and, yeah. So anyways.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you've been, you've been out of the country.

Yeah.

Yeah. Not really in the country, but out of the, out of the con— what is the word?

Continental US.

That's the one.

Yeah.

Yeah. I can't speak. Yeah.

No, we, we, we took our, our 18th anniversary trip to St. John. We'll, we'll do a, we'll do a trip report episode.

Yeah. We need to do that.

So, I mean, and, and to, I mean, like, we're, I don't know how many minutes we're into the show now, but like to, to bring everybody—

15.

15. Thank you. Uh, 15 minutes in, we'll tell you guys exactly what's happening. Um, we, last week we had Christie on. Yeah. Christie's a real estate agent, uh, here in Conroe that's been working with, uh, old, older folks in our community transitioning out of homeownership and into either like assisted living or, or nursing home facilities. and helping those families manage that transition from the real estate side of things. And so when she came to me with this idea, I was like, look, I mean, we've had Sean on before. I think this would be a really interesting topic to do in kind of a series where we're like, let's talk to Christie about her experience selling the house, getting someone

detached from their property, then having a conversation with Sean about what it looks like for a resident to actually move out of a home and into assisted living.

Mm-hmm.

And then having you guys come back together to have a conversation about what, you know, how we can best serve these people holistically through that whole process. Because, you know, we're all sitting around the table and I think, I think I'm Correct me if I'm wrong, all of our folks are still around.

They are.

Yeah. And so all of us are kind of looking down the barrel of a gun in this situation here pretty quick.

Yeah.

At least in the next decade.

Yeah. I mean, we've made a little bit of a different transition with my mother-in-law.

You've kind of made some moves already.

Yeah. And most people that listen to the show regularly know, but if you don't, My mother-in-law, she's 73. She's not that old. But, and if you knew her, you would not—

Like, 20 years ago, that's a crazy sentence.

Oh, I know.

Right?

Like, but you, but you've met my mother-in-law. Yeah. No, she's acting—

she's crazy active.

Yeah. She acts like better than a lot of 53-year-olds. But, but she lived in East Texas and she sold her house and, and moved onto our property and built a house onto our property. And so we're, she's right there with us, which is, which is great. Um, but not everybody can do that. Not everybody wants to do that. And so it—

Right.

But if you've got a parent or a grandparent, whoever, who needs to move, well, we heard last in episode 285, if you haven't listened to it, go listen to it, from Christie. There's just so much like taking advantage of people that are just, you know, good older people that want to trust everybody and want to just, you know, assume everything's good. They don't want to put anybody out. And so they get taken advantage of many times. But all they really need is the right type of care, whether that's moving into an assisted living place or a nursing home or, uh, you know, I, I called it a 55 and Alive place last year— last week. Uh, you know, one of those communities that that is specifically designed for,

um, an older community. There's just a lot of options out there. And so, um, I get one of the things that I think we need to ask, uh, for some clarification on is what is the difference in— because my, my grandpa is, uh, 96. He's 96. Uh, he lives in a nursing home. Um, what is the difference between a nursing home and an assisted living place?

Excellent question. It's the nursing.

Okay.

It's the nursing part. So in an assisted living facility, we focus on what we call the ADLs, the activities of daily living. So we, you know, my staff, we're, we're helping people get up in the morning. You know, it's pretty much anything that happens from the time your alarm clock goes off. Right. So you've got, you know, we're helping people get dressed, get them to the bathroom. get them fed. You know, we're showering folks, those that need that, you know, a full, full assistance.

That level.

That level. But, you know, when you— and so again, it's non-medical. That's, that's really the big key differentiator. I don't have to have a nurse on staff 24/7, whereas in skilled nursing facilities, or sometimes referred to as like a SNF unit, It's, it's skilled nurses that are there, and that's medical care.

Okay.

And, you know, we can, we can unpack some of that, but, you know—

Does that have anything to do with, like, administering medication and, and maybe even, like, as far as, like, the, the medication side of things? Is that where— I mean, is that what— give me just maybe a snippet of what the— what that means.

Okay. So, you know, for someone to end up in a, in a, in a just a full-on skilled nursing facility, they would have to have some pretty high level of need, you know, from a medical, you know, standpoint where they've gotta be monitored or, you know, maybe they've got something that's, you know, an open wound, you know, and they need some serious wound care or things like that, or they're just incredibly sick, you know.

Okay.

And, you know, I don't hear of a whole lot, you know, we're, We're a private pay facility, so we don't accept Medicaid. And the families that we serve, they have the resources to pay privately for their loved one to come into one of our homes. But at any rate, the way we're set up and the way we're licensed, and this is, I've gotten back into operations recently. And after a couple of years of working on the business, but not in the business. Yeah. And so, I mean, even today, I gave a tour to a daughter that's, you know, her mom is, you know, at a big— I call them a big box facility. I mean, it's like 4

stories and, you know, 100 residents per floor, you know, and, you know, the care in those kind of places are, they're not that great. Let's just be honest.

Well, it, that has something to do specifically with the ratio of Nurse to caregivers to resident ratio. Right.

And the— now I've got a very interesting story for you guys.

Okay.

My own. I just managed to convince my own grandmother to move into my newest assisted living.

Really?

My last living grandparent.

How old is she?

She is 94.

Okay.

And so here's the backstory. This past December, I get a call. You know, my grandfather passed a few years ago. They lived in Pearland. I mean, dude, everything that you're talking about is actually happening right now in my own family. And it's wild to me. Anyways, she's at home alone. She started having some falls and a couple times had to go to the ER. Thank God she had one of those bracelets. You press it and the fire department comes and they've already got a key to your house or they know where it's at.

Yeah.

my mom texted me a photo of the kitchen and it looked like a damn crime scene. I mean, there was blood everywhere. Just your head, you hit your head, it bleeds worse than anything. Anyways, I'm like, oh my goodness, come on. And I love my grandmother, but she's a stubborn old gal.

Of course.

Sure. But I went to her and I said, your grandson just built, he owns his own assisted living facility. For starters, I just built a brand new one. Please let us care for you.

Right.

You know, and it took convincing. They've been in this home over 50 years.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's gonna be—

And, but, you know, let's—

That's home.

That, that is home. But, you know, she's living there by herself.

Yeah.

She doesn't watch television. I mean, that's, to me, that's like the definition of insanity. Just, just sitting there in an empty house and just, you know, and it wasn't safe anymore. And so I got her to move into Seasons, and it's been amazing to kind of see how she's— I mean, her life is being enriched now because she's around other people. She's eating better than she ever has. And she finally has subscribed to this new chapter in her life. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, my mom and my aunt and my uncle, they're emptying out her house and they're getting ready to put it on the road, put it on market. and get it, get it sold.

Well, and that's, I think that's, that's one of the things that we wanted to, to talk a little bit about, especially, I mean, from, from the real estate side, but obviously you, you're experiencing some of this right now is, you know, you, I don't think you want to wait until your, your mother is 94, 95 because chances are that you're 74, 75 when you're doing that. And like, I'm sorry, like when I'm 74, 75, I don't want to be cleaning out a house.

Right.

That's going to be overexerting myself to a certain degree, I would imagine. I mean, this is the conversation I have with my parents right now is I think they would probably like to move into a different, maybe smaller place, but they can't mentally wrap their head around getting everything out of the place that they're in now.

They've got a lot of stuff.

They got a lot of stuff and they're like, what would we do with it? And that's because here's the truth, you get rid of it. That's, that's the thing.

That's the problem is whenever you've accumulated these things that I love, and your mom, I mean, your mom has, she is a decorator and a designer in all respects of things. And so she's got stuff.

Still is, man. Like while we're out, while we were out of town, she redid all of our kids' rooms. I know.

Wow.

I mean, like, completely redecorated them, like, brought in new furniture. Like, just, I mean, that was their, that was all their birthday presents this year.

But most of that stuff she didn't go get. Most of it she had, like, I was— or made.

Yeah.

And so that's just, but, but that's the thing is like, I've got all this stuff and I need it. It's mine. I need it.

Yeah. You know, I kept it because I need it. But like, you, you, you run the, what you run into and like, again, like, this is, this is sort of more of a philosophical conversation, but your stuff, at the end of the day, your stuff, you don't get to take it with you.

Right.

So ultimately it doesn't matter.

Right.

But you're still nostalgic and you care about those things because sometimes it's like pictures of your brothers and your sisters and your mom and your dad, and you want to make sure that those go to the right people and that they stay in the family. And I get all that, but if you stay there too long, you're leaving it up to other people to make those decisions for you rather than doing it for yourself on the front end. And you may not be as happy with those decisions that some of those children get to exert on your things.

Right.

I mean, I don't know how it's going with your grandma, but she just stepped away.

She is finally— she's subscribed to what's going on in her life.

How long of a process though was that having that conversation with— was the fall kind of like a thing that was like wake-up time or did it take—

It was, but I mean, it was literally— and there was even a time after she moved in with us where she's missing her home, missing her thing. And I didn't do this, but I think my mom or maybe my aunt did this. They pulled out their cell phone and showed my grandmother the pictures of her head and pictures and the pictures of her kitchen and said, look.

She didn't realize how bad it was.

No. She didn't realize how bad it was.

Yeah.

And, of course, dude, I could go down so many routes with this, but a lot of these older folks, and I'm seeing this a lot lately, you go to the doctor and you go to the doctor and you, at that point in time, they prescribe you something, say, for blood pressure.

Okay?

Right.

And a lot of these older folks, they set it and forget it, right? So they get their meds on mail order or they just— it's automatically refilled. And I mean, literally sometimes decades will go by taking the same med that their general practitioner gave them back in the day, right?

Right.

Now, their bodies have changed over time, things have happened, and they don't necessarily need that medicine.

Right.

And so I've seen I'm dealing with this right now. And so when someone comes into Seasons and moves in with us, one of the first things I ask is I get it. I bring in a doctor and we do a top-down kind of review of like— because I had someone move in this past Friday and the, you know, they got mom all set up in her room. The kids have been working for a couple of days, made her room really nice, all new furniture. And then when they finally bring her over, And then they— the son comes in my office with like a big, big trash bag full of bottles, pill bottles, vitamins, medicine. Here you go. You know, here's mom's meds.

Yeah.

And I'm like, holy cow, that's a lot of meds.

Yeah.

And I said, how much— I mean, and I mean, he was kind of lost at this point. And I said, how much of that do you think she really needs? And he goes, Sean, some of these some of these she's been on for like years and years. So, you know, it's— things, things change over time.

They have to.

They do change.

Yeah, they do.

It's wild.

Yeah. And it's one of those deals where, yeah, I mean, the amount of neglect that winds up happening, and it's not purposeful. I don't, I don't think it's purposeful. But, you know, so often it's like, well, this is what I've always done. And you don't recognize that there needs to be a different amount of this is done this way now.

Sure.

You know, it, it literally an additional 10 years goes by a lot of times. Yeah. And it's like, what's changed? Well, everything, but they don't think everything's changed. And so there's a lot that needs to be done. Yeah. Yeah.

How often when you, when you have that doctor come in and do that prescription review, how, how often is it just, I mean, if you could guesstimate in your head, how often is it that your residents are being overmedicated?

Do you think?

It's pretty common.

Is it?

Yeah. They're overmedicating. Sometimes they're, for those kind of like my grandmother, this is, again, dude, what a perfect episode to talk about. Let's talk about close to home. My grandmother, love her to death, but again, she's home alone. She gets a little confused and it's very common for the— and they're taking their own meds. But to overdose themselves, you know, because they forget, they take a dose and then they'll go do something for an hour and they can't remember if they took it or not. So they double down on it and they take another one, you know? And so they're self-administering meds that, you know, there needs to be some oversight into the entire process.

Well, and so, you know, going back to, you know, what I was saying earlier about ratios and like the number of nurses that are in a nursing home versus the number of, you know, people that are in your facility taking care of, of the residents. It's a different ratio.

Yeah.

And you're paying for the ratio, but you're getting a different level of care.

Yeah.

And with that comes a different level of longevity of life. and quality of life.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, I'm, I'm dealing with right now, um, my, I'd mentioned my grandpa, like he's, he's got some stuff that includes neglect at the nursing home that I'm like, man, I think, I think a lawyer needs to get involved in some of this kind of stuff. And it's one of those deals where I, I, I don't know how to deal with all of that, but, but I, I sometimes look at it and go, man, I, I wish he, he could have had an opportunity to be in the type of facility that y'all offer because it, it is a, just a different level.

It is. And, you know, I always say, I mean, senior living, we, we can do it better in a smaller environment. We're choosing to be small. You know, Navasota and Conroe, those are licensed for 14 residents. Magnolia, 16. We can't, we don't want to go above 16. And because again, it's, it's about the, the personal touches. It's about, and we always want to be nearby. We want to be very, you know, I, I treat everyone like they're a fall risk, whether they need it or not. But there's advantages to being small. And in senior living, it's a good thing because the care goes up.

Well, I remember one of the things you told us in that very first podcast that you did with us, that they get to participate in making their menus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that is huge. That is huge. Like, I get to eat what I want.

Yeah. I mean, we get their feedback a lot. Of course, when a new family moves in, I was working with another lady that's moving in her mom this week, actually, from a 55 and older apartment kind of setup.

Yeah.

And, but I call it the download. You know, when I'm meeting with the family, I'm like, I need to know everything there is to know about your mom. I want to know what kind of music she likes, what movies, you know, does she like brownies, pancakes? I mean, you know, and because the more information we can get, our staff can kind of customize her, her care plan. And we call it person-centered care. Okay. You know, that's kind of our thing is because we can individualize a lot.

Mm-hmm.

In these big places, like, you know, like you've mentioned. Right. It's very hard to do that when you've got 1 staff member to 25, you know, residents to take care of.

And, and look, I'm not gonna throw anybody under the bus on this because when you are in a facility that the ratios are not healthy, I'm gonna say healthy because I don't think they're healthy.

Good word.

And you're dealing with instead of maybe 2 residents, and I don't know what your ratio is, now they're dealing with 20.

Oh, no, at least 20.

Exactly.

So I— okay, so a lot of our families come from the big places. Once the kids figure out it's not all there. It's not all cracked up. And then it's kind of fun to watch, actually. I've hired a lot of caregivers over the years that have worked in the big places. And when they come to our place and it's small and 2 of them are in a residential neighborhood, and then of course the new one has turned out amazing, but they're thrilled because they're used to working on the 3rd floor.

One caregiver.

So in, in our setting, for example, it's like 1, 1 caregiver to 5 residents.

Okay.

Okay. 1 to 5, 1 to 4, 1 to 5.

That makes sense.

Yeah. You know, um, but it's like 1 to 25 in these big places. And so, dude, that's a lot of people to pass out meds to. And, you know, if they're incontinent, you gotta change them, get them cleaned up and all that stuff. Um, and it is just, I don't know, I call it a warehouse.

So one of the things that my grandpa is experiencing, I feel like this is I'm not trying to overtake this with just, gosh, family, but here's the thing.

Why are you hijacking the show?

I know, man.

Such a diva.

Yeah, it's normal.

It's just normal. Is one of the things that he's— and again, he's losing his mind, but he just yells all the time. And I'm sure that nobody wants to go in there. And so you get that times 25. It's like, I can't, I, I'm, he's gonna get neglected and other people are gonna get neglected, not necessarily because they're trying to, but it's like, I don't, it's your turn to go in there.

Can you share, or do you wanna share publicly what his diagnosis is and what, I mean, how he got there?

Uh, there's no official diagnosis.

Okay.

At all. Um, and, but he's, I mean, he has, he's just kind of, losing his, his mind. And what I mean by that is he— what he, what he does is he, he'll ask the same question over and over and over, and you'll answer him, and he'll ask another question. He'll go back to the same question. He'll ask the same other question, and he'll go back and forth. What time? And it's always, it's always like this. Hey, what is today? What time is it? What is today? What time is it? And, you know, that is over and over and over. And so, um, that's— but I, I don't even— and this sounds— I don't enjoy going because I

don't— he's not, he's not who I remember him being, right? You know? And so, and, and he lives a long way away, so it's not— if he lived closer, I would, but he lives like 10 hours away from me. But, um, when I do go, I'm like, this is not the life that— and, and, and also, and I know a lot of people get here. He said, I remember him saying, I don't know how many times I heard him say this, uh, Kevin, whatever, I never want to go to a nursing home. And now he's been there for 7 years.

Is where he's at in a nursing home, or is it—

It is a nursing home.

Okay.

Yeah. And, and, but this is, this is the difference. And I, and I hate it because it is what it is and it's what can be afforded. Um, he's a vet.

Yeah.

And so he has certain opportunities because of that. But the opportunities are slim. Um, and it is what it is. He has the opportunity that he has. Um, but I, let me just kind of transition this for a moment. Um, I think that this is something that I, at 43 years old, need to be thinking about for my children so that I can do what I need to do if I want to live in— if I need to not live in my home any longer, right? That I can live where I want to so that my kids know that, that I'm being taken care of. They don't have to take care of me every moment, and I'm getting the level of care

But that's going to require a level of saving that I'm going to have to be able to afford a certain level of facility. You know what I mean? And I think we need to talk about that a little bit more amongst our generation.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and they have, I think they have financial instruments.

Like vehicles.

Yeah. Financial vehicles that you can use for those kinds of things.

Well, and I'll tell you what the vehicle is. I mean, there's, there's a couple, but it always makes me happy when a resident comes in and they, they purchased a long-term care insurance policy.

There it is, right?

Back in the day. And, and, and it's fewer than like 2%. I mean, you don't hear much about it. Usually they bought it through their company back in the day and they just kept paying the premium and it pays for all or a majority of that monthly bill. And, um, you know, they— I mean, every, every month I, I fill out paperwork, I sign that yes, Grandpa was here during this, this time, and, and, and, uh, you know, he never left the building. And, and I'll, I'll submit our invoices to their insurance company, and then they will, they will stroke a check or direct deposit, you know, back to the family.

Wow.

And, but again, I think— I forget what the latest stat is, but it's like Fewer than 2% of people have a long-term care insurance policy.

That's, that's crazy for, like, the, the amount of people that are about to be 60+.

Well, so, I mean, the, there's 10, what, like 10,000 people turning 65 every day, or, and the big wave is coming right now. We're still dealing with the silent generation.

Okay.

You know, folks in their, you know, 80s, 90s, but the baby boomers are coming.

Right.

And that's the big wave. There's not enough beds, you know, to online and assisted living to account. We're actually not gonna have enough beds in 10 years to accommodate all of the baby boomers.

Right.

It's wild.

So I, I pulled up the numbers from the World Health Organization on this just because I was curious. And here, this is as of 2022. It says by 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. And it says, at this time, the share of the population aged 60 years and over will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. By 2050, the world's population of people aged 60 years and older will double to 2.1 billion.

I think there's a lot of things that we can probably attribute that to. Probably healthcare is different and all these sorts of things.

But Well, this, this isn't about people living longer. This is just about the number of people who are gonna be 6 years and older.

No, I understand that.

But so, like, you—

I think we are living longer, though.

We are living, we are living longer.

Yeah, we are.

But, like, you're, you're also talking, you're talking about people living longer added onto that. We have a, just a bigger population of people.

In that number. Yeah. Because the baby boomers.

Yes. The baby boomers.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's gonna be a real thing.

So what do you, okay. So what do you think is the, what's gonna happen? Like, what do you think has to happen? What do you think needs to happen? I mean, are we talking, like, more, like, in-home nursing or what do you think?

Yeah. You know, I think that, I mean, as an entrepreneur, you know, I, it, that wave also creates opportunity.

Absolutely.

Okay?

And, you know, I've assisted living. I first got in this business because I, I wanted to get into real estate. My wife's grandfather had dementia. And I watched her family scramble around trying to figure out what to do with grandpa. And, dude, it's just kind of like a perfect storm that I found myself, you know, in this business. And, you know, it's a purpose-driven business. It's a calling. And, you know, it's— it comes with its own sets of problems and challenges. But, you know, I think that there's a ton of opportunity for entrepreneurs to start their own.

Mhmm.

And, you know, There are a lot of, you know, smaller care homes, you know, that are just, you know, I call them personal care homes.

I've seen these.

They're unlicensed.

Yeah.

And, and we can unpack some of that if you want. But, and, you know, that they just, there's no accountability. They, you know, you've got some open beds in your room and you just, you know, charge everybody $3,000 a month or $4,000 or maybe it's like $2,200. I mean, whatever. But it'd be like you taking your house right now And just moving, you know, some folks in.

Yeah. So that actually— we've— so we've got a, a lady at our church that lives in one of those places. And I didn't know she lived in one of those places, but we were doing some caroling around Christmas.

Okay.

And she was on the list. So we showed up and I'm like, this is someone's house. And they told us that she was in like a, a home, a facility of some sort. But they're like, no, this is actually it. So I knock on the door and, uh, a lady that I assumed was a nurse answered the door and she was like, well, they're— everybody's, everybody's in bed. I'm like, what do you mean everybody's in bed? I am so confused by this. What do you mean everybody's in bed? And, and what I found out was that there— it's like a 4-bedroom home and they've got like 8 people that live there, or 4 people, I don't know how many people. They got—

Hopefully not 8.

They got people living there, and someone lives there with them.

Yeah.

And I don't know. I'm sure that there's multiple people that rotate in, but that's kind of— that's, that's what you're talking about.

Right?

That's exactly what I'm talking about. And it's a, you know, it's a personal care home. Now let me tell you, this per— these personal care homes, especially in the Houston area and especially in Harris County, It's a real issue. Because again, not everyone's coming at this from the right place. They're doing it to make a buck.

Right.

I have a real problem with people like that because they're not putting, you know, the residents first. And, you know, even when we were getting our building, you know, online and I was spending a lot of time with the Montgomery County Fire Marshal's Office, you know, and the fire marshal's on our location. And, you know, he had a lot of stories to tell me, you know, of— because, you know, in the state of Texas, in a personal care home, you can only have 3 residents. You can have 4 if, if the 4th one is related to you. Okay. Okay.

So it probably wasn't Nate.

Well, no, hang on. But here's where it gets interesting.

Okay.

You know, he was telling me— the fire marshal was telling me stories about going into some of these homes. You know, someone files a complaint. And, and let me tell you how these things unwind themselves is someone, they'll accept a resident in there and maybe the resident has dementia or Alzheimer's and it's not secure and they end up heading out the front door and on the street and neighbors get involved or they get lost or, you know, I mean, bad things happen because when there's not accountability.

Right.

And so, but, you know, the fire marshal was telling me and I, I hear a lot about you know, these people will go into a market and lease a home. I'm not even making it your own personal home. They'll just go lease a home in a neighborhood, even with an HOA, and they'll set up shop. And, you know, sometimes it's for seniors, but other times it's for, you know, sober living, or it could be a boy's home or a girl's home. But, I mean, it's just under the radar. And they've set up shop. And again, I'm all about the highest roads possible, the highest degree of accountability. And so I'm not a big fan of those kind of places. Well, of course not.

Just because for everything I've already mentioned. But yeah, that is a route and I'm sure there's some good ones. Don't get me wrong. I know a couple of folks that they've kind of managed to build a little brand and they're doing a good job. They've got very high standards.

Mhmm.

We, but if you wanna go above 4 and you wanna take the high roads, you gotta get a license and, and, and put in some fire and sprinklers and, you know, go about it the right way.

So there are, I was gonna ask you what the, what the difference was between, like, cuz you were saying like unlicensed, unregulated.

Mhmm.

The, the, I mean, like, to me that always means like there's some sort of agency that's, you know, looking over your shoulder.

Yeah. Yeah. So to be a licensed assisted living facility, there's a lot of hoops you got to jump through.

Right.

But there's accountability that comes with that. I mean, there is Texas Health and Human Services Commission is a real organization and they have big divisions and they have surveyors and I welcome accountability, but these surveyors will just pop in anytime unannounced and they can walk in my front door, show their badge, or if they're laminated, you know, whatever. And then they'll say, hey, how many residents you got? Well, I got, I got 12. Okay, cool. Why don't you pull 4, you know, 4 resident files and let's go sit down. And then they'll, they can ask to look at my meds. They, they can count pills if they want to. I mean, Wow. there's a very high degree of accountability. And they have to make

sure that we're doing fire drills and, you know, all the way down to, you know, getting a thermostat and measuring the, the temperature of the water coming out of the faucets.

Wow.

Putting a thermostat in the fridge. I mean, I got to maintain fridge and freezer logs. I mean, it's next level accountability.

Yeah.

But I mean, we want to do that. We want to be licensed because we get recognized as being one of the best. And I think that that just shows people, it shows our audience that we're know, we're, we're down for the challenge, so to speak.

Yeah.

And, and I'm asking because, like, I'm, I'm also in, like, a highly regu— regulated industry.

Sure.

Like, how, how often are those guys coming through? Well, I know it's unpredictable because they can come anytime, but, like, on average, like you say, like, once every year, like, how many visits?

Maybe once.

Maybe once.

Yeah.

Okay. But then, you know, COVID made things a little weird. Right?

Sure.

Because, you know, and, and of course, you know, our reli— our licenses, you know, for each of our facilities, They, they're 3-year licenses. We gotta go through a renewal process. But, you know, with COVID the, the surveyors slowed down and, but they're, they're around and, you know, yeah, they, they show up.

Well, and I, and I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna dial in on this because I think, I think when you say once a year, people go, oh my gosh, only once a year?

Yeah.

But, like, what I think people need to understand is that really means that you have to have your stuff together.

Oh, yeah.

Because when those guys come in once a year, they are fully up your rectum.

100%.

Only, and only once a year means a lot of slack can happen from month to month to month. Think nobody's been here. We're not gonna do that. Yeah. Or we're just gonna slip on that. And all of a sudden, inspector comes. Boom. Yeah.

If, if state shows up, you know, to do a survey. And, and by the way, I've had this, you know, We have to have these required postings in the entryway, all these different notices and our licenses on the wall. But I've had instances over— I've been doing this for a while now. I'm going into year 8 or 9. But I've had staff caregivers that I've hired that I didn't think they were doing a good job. And they— I terminated their employment. They got pissed off at me. And on their way out, they just called the 1-800 number.

Stop.

and filed a complaint. Oh, they're neglecting and, or just making up stuff, right? Because they're just, they lost their job. And these state surveyors, they've gotten really good at kind of knowing—

Weeding that out.

Yeah.

Where did you work in the last year?

Yeah, exactly. Well, no, when someone files an anonymous report, but they're very specific, go see Mr. Tom in room 3 and look at his, you know, blood pressure medication.

Okay.

Well, how would you know that unless you weren't there? You know what I'm saying? So anyways, but yeah, dude, the accountability, it's off the chain. But, you know, again, I welcome it because, you know, that's just the right thing to do.

Yeah.

Yeah. So one of the things you mentioned that I want to dial back in just a moment is you mentioned that you think that there's opportunity not just for you, but for other people across the nation, wherever. Is that something you've ever considered doing some coaching with?

Dude, I swear, I feel like that I had no plans of mentioning this tonight because I honestly, I didn't know what we were going to talk about, which is always kind of fun with you guys because, you know. So yes, I have started a new company. It's called carehome.io.

Okay.

I just finished shooting a 12-hour video course.

Alright.

And I built a studio and brought in some pros. And, dude, it's hard to shoot a course and, and talk and edit and just everything. I mean, it's been going on forever.

It's a lot.

We're on the tail end. What I've— what carehome.io is, it's a, it's a platform. It's web-based. It's education plus software. So I've, I've taken all of my favorite tools that I use in my own business, and I've, I've created this platform where you pay monthly and you can have all this education. I give people all these spreadsheets, financial calculators, tools, but then I bundle it with software. So I've got a CRM.

Oh, nice.

I've got— I can give you a marketing phone number that you can use and, you know, for your marketing and text SMS stuff. I mean, We've gone next level, my team that I've hired. So we're excited. That's launching in just a few weeks.

That's awesome.

Carehome.io.

Congrats, man.

And, but let me tell you how it was, how it, I mean, I've always, I've always kind of coached or consulted other people in this business, but, you know, I'm in a lot of these assisted living Facebook groups, right? And there's a lot of them. And, you know, all these newbie questions that are coming around and, you know, people, hey, I want to take my, my home out in the country and, you know, I think it'd be a make for a really good care home. Where do I start? You know? And so I'm like, man, and there's, there's other people in this education space. But I feel like I can, I can coach it better because I'm, I'm,

I'm living it. I'm doing it. There's a lot of bad information on the internet.

Of course.

And so, no. Yes.

Yeah.

Sorry, Craig.

It's hard to believe.

My world has been shattered.

Yeah.

So for your listeners, if you want to learn how to start your own residential assisted living facility, go to carehome.io and get on the waiting list. Put in your name, your email address, and we'll let you know when we go live.

That's awesome.

And I'm gonna walk you through every single step to zoning, HOA, construction. I mean, I've kind of lived, you know, pretty— I've pretty much been through every single avenue on this deal. And then, you know, we talk about raising capital. We talk about hiring staff. I mean, just all the things that go into starting your own care home.

Right.

Because I do think there's opportunity for good operators.

Sure.

Good operators. And by the way, it's worth mentioning, and this is new, this is hot off the press. Genworth, which is a, a leading insurance company and, and a leading long-term care insurance provider, they just updated their national average rate in the US for assisted living is over $5,200 a month.

now.

Per bed for a private room, $5,200 a month. Now, that's average across the US. Texas is, I think it's, I don't know, it's in the 5s now. Boise, Idaho is like $3,300. You go to the DC area, it's like $7,000 to $9,000. But on average, $5,200 a bed. Think about that. So if you got 4 of those, you got 4, You got 4 beds, $25,000 a month, whatever the number is. And then, you know, you get staff and, you know, you take it from there.

It can be a business.

It can be a business.

I mean, obviously it is. I mean, that's what I've— but, but, but to your point, and, and, and here's the thing that, that I love because there's a lot of people listening to this is like, wow, that took a turn. Because we were talking about caring for a 96-year-old grandpa to now make money off of it.

Right.

But here's the truth. You want the, the good guys making money off of this. That's what you want, because the good guys are going to continue to build more facilities to take care of more people. And those are the people that you want really working the business. It's the bad actors that you want to kind of get out of there. So, so if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and this is something that's interesting to you, 100%. Then what are you gonna do? Again, going back to the question, whenever these older, you know, younger older people in their, their late 50s, early 60s, when they need a facility, now let's go ahead and start the process.

100%.

You know?

Well, you know, it's crazy. I turned 50 this year.

Wow.

This month, actually. Happy birthday.

Yeah.

Thanks, man. I don't wanna talk about it. I'm really struggling with this birthday.

Yeah.

So, but dude, My kids, they've kind of grown up in this business a little bit. And back in the day, they didn't understand. They were my older boys. They were in high school. They didn't understand why dad quit his job and went all in on working with old people. And it's a business play and a real estate play. And that gets very interesting.

Sure.

And so, but at any rate, I've already got my room picked out when it's time for me to go. You know what I'm saying? And the kids know exactly which room it is. And I'll— and I've, you know, but it is nice to have that in my own back pocket.

Sure.

If I need it, I've already been able to tap into it for someone in my own family, my grandmother. We talked about that. Yeah. But, you know, even my parents, you know, when they've come down to the new Magnolia building and, and they were like, man, You know, I want to stay in my home, but if I had to go somewhere else, like, this, this is legit.

Yeah. No, it is.

Like, it's, it's, it's awesome. Thank you, man.

It really, really is. I've not been there.

You haven't?

Come on.

No, I need to make it happen.

And you don't get invited there. You don't get boots.

It's a Christmas life for you.

Bring your Christmas carolers.

Oh yeah.

I'm being serious.

Bring it.

We, we love volunteers. Um, last weekend we had, um, a bunch of kids from Legacy. Come and plant fresh flowers in the flower beds, a little community project. And it's just super cool. And my homes are licensed for both assisted living and memory care under one roof. There's no lockdown wing. There's no separate unit. It's all one building. But we got some healthy folks in there.

Yeah.

And I've got several residents, including my grandmother. They've got a cell phone. If they don't like something, they'll call. But then we've got some that do have full-blown Alzheimer's and we're dealing with some of those behaviors and some of those needs. So it keeps it interesting, but we love volunteers, man. And it lights the residents up.

Sure.

So please, and to your listeners, yes, go to meetseasons.com, send us a message, and let's get something set up. Tomorrow we've got a a string quartet coming out. That's awesome. And the residents are pumped.

Of course.

And they're gonna come out. What time?

2:30.

How about 2:30?

There's a show.

That's right.

Well, Craig, you didn't know. I went ahead and put you on the activity calendar.

Okay.

Just an acoustic set. If you don't mind.

I'm there for it, man.

We can do it.

Amazing, dude. I had to— I actually, I played a wedding 2 weeks ago now. And the bride, I think, was 77 and the groom was 85.

Stop. Yeah.

Wow.

It was awesome. Amazing. Like, the bride came down the aisle and the preacher doing the ceremony said, he goes, I'm just going to say out loud what everybody else is thinking. What the hell's wrong with y'all? Wow.

That's crazy.

So, hey, real quick, uh, thank you to our sponsors for this episode. Uh, we've got our newest one, which is True Texas Solar.

All right.

Uh, we, we love working with those guys. We've done a couple live shows with them now, but like, probably the, uh, the most overqualified solar company that you'll ever come across. I mean, with meteorologists on staff, engineers on staff. We met some guys on staff there that were like from NASA.

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I mean, like, you want to talk about some guys that can do some math, that can figure out your, your power bill and get your house set up for solar energy properly.

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Right.

Which is just a complete scam.

Nobody gets free solar.

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Yeah, Lone Star Appliance Repair. Uh, we've had these, uh, guys as a sponsor for a long time because they're great at what they do. In fact, my mother-in-law, um, called me just the other day from out the pasture, out behind us. Uh, she, uh—

Across the holler.

That's right. She caught— she called and she was like, she was like, hey, um, just so you know, I'm— I may need to borrow your washer because, uh, mine has filled and it won't drain and I don't know what's going on. It won't really— it's not turning on or anything. And I was like, I know the people to call, Lone Star Appliance Repair. And she was like, oh, I was gonna ask if you knew someone. I was like, I always know someone. But, um, but yeah, I, I told her, I was like, look, you can go buy a new unit. Although this one that she's had is pretty old, but it's never given me any problems.

Was it the one she brought with her?

Yeah. She's had this one for probably 15 years. It's one of those, uh, one units.

Uh, oh yeah.

The stacks. The stacks. I've seen the one in her house too. Yeah. Um, and it's worked great for her. And I'm like, why would you go buy a new one whenever you can get someone out for a really reasonable rate? And then, you know, as long— if you, you know, if you wind up having them repair it, then that call, you don't pay for the call anymore.

It's like, what, $95?

It's like $95 just to diagnose. I mean, it's definitely worth it. And then, um, most likely they'll be able to repair it for less than what it would cost you to go buy a new one of those. And then And then I don't have to move it.

And those stacked units are not cheap either.

No, they're not. They're very nice in, in what they do. And especially for a one-person home, um, you know, it's, it's a great opportunity. So repair your appliances. Don't just throw them in the, the landfill and go buy a new one. Whenever it can be repaired, it's gonna be so much better for the environment. It's gonna be better for you. It's gonna be cheaper. And you already know your unit. So whatever it is, I mean, whether it's a dishwasher, They don't work on sinks. But—

Oh, they do.

Darlene confirmed it. Well, kind of. But Lone Star Appliance Repair, give them a call or text them at 936-647-2364, and they will take care of you. Absolutely.

So, Sean, in getting prepped for this episode, I was doing a little bit of research, and I was curious, have you come across the PBS documentary, The Life and Death in Assisted Living?

No.

No. Are you familiar with the company Emeritus?

Yes.

Okay. So the documentary is all about Emeritus. And if you don't know about it, I can tell you a little bit about it just because I watched it. It is not kind to your industry. I'll just tell you that. And the whole film starts off with these sisters whose dad was living in an Emeritus facility. was able to get out of his room unobserved. Nobody was paying attention to him. He got a hold of some industrial cleaner, drank it, and ended up burning his face. And he ended up in the hospital, ultimately dying from it. They filed suit against this company. And it was honestly, it seemed like kind of like a hit piece on assisted living.

Oh, yeah.

But it was using this multi- billion company as the bludgeoning tool to convince everybody that assisted living is this predatory entity out there that's skirting the line from regulations away from nursing homes. And so that's what they were making that distinction there. And so I do think that they're— and this film came out in 2013. So that's this, this stuff's been circulating in the culture for a while. You know what? Obviously, there's a difference between you and, like, a, you know, like, a—

A big corporate.

Yes.

100%.

Because those exist.

Let me tell you, the family should file a lawsuit on things like that. I, I hear stories like that all the time. In fact, I have a Google alert just for the words assisted living.

In the news?

Yeah. And, you know, I'll get the Google Google, you know, you set those up and it's just all assisted living in, in headlines.

Uh-huh.

And, they're not always good stories.

I would, I would imagine. Well, I mean, but, like, that's, that's how news makes their money, right? Is like, yeah.

Yeah.

But, I mean, these are—

Scare tactics.

Horrible is clickable.

A little. Yeah. True. Very true. But, I mean, they're real events that, you know, involve— I don't know. I think the word that keeps coming back to my mind is accountability.

Mhmm.

You know, he shouldn't have been able to get out.

Right.

Right.

You know, it, it just, he, those cleaning products should have been locked away in a cabinet.

Big time. Yep.

You know, I mean, we keep all that stuff locked away for a very good reason. We're memory care, for crying out loud. And so, because they do, you know, people sundown, they get their days, their nights mixed up. And, like, you know, but again, that's a big box place. That's a, that, that Emeritus is a big senior living company. And, you know, you got your Brookdells and your Sunrise Atria. I mean, these are big corporate providers. And, again, I'm not saying they're all bad.

Sure.

Yeah.

No. But you, you gotta understand.

But there's a difference.

There is a difference. I mean, it's, it, it's a night and day difference. But I think it comes down to—

But I think you can see that with anything. I think you can go to, to a chain restaurant.

Yeah.

And one restaurant's gonna be phenomenal, and the one down the road is not gonna be great. And it has to do with management. It has to do with the employees. It has to do with the general manager. It has to do with everything that you're, that you're working with. And you just can't expect everything to be in a big, in a big— I mean, you've got different facilities too, but they're small on purpose.

Yes.

They're small on purpose.

They're small on purpose.

Yeah.

So, I mean, dude, that, that's an interesting story. I mean, unfortunately, it— those stories, those types of stories, they happen a lot. And, you know, there's just, it comes down to leadership and then it comes down to really the heart of the operator and, you know, how serious are you really taking this business? You know?

Yeah.

So yeah, it's wild.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, I, any of, any story like that that happens is unfortunate, you know? And so, but like, there's, I think you're kind of existing in like a happy medium because like earlier we were talking about these, some of these smaller facilities. these, like, not assisted, but like, you know, where you can only have 3.

Right.

You know, and like, you can, you can look at those and go, well, okay, so like, you might have 1, maybe 2 people looking in on people, and really this might be just a little bit of a money grab.

Yeah.

And then, and then you have these big box ones where, like, you know, neglect becomes the ally of the resident almost, you know. It's, and, and so they're, you know, someone, the staff isn't making as much money. They've got 200 residents that they're looking after. You know, and, and, and then neglect becomes something that actually turns into harm.

Yeah.

And ultimately death in this situation.

Yeah.

You know, whereas, like, you can kind of operate and go like, okay, we're gonna have— I think, I think your one in Conroe, what, has 14?

It's licensed for 14.

Licensed for 14.

You know, it can have 14.

It can have 14. And, you know, I've, I've never been above, I don't know, 12 in that home.

Right.

And, of course, you know, it's, it's just a different layout. It's a different— they're all semi-private rooms. You know, they're all shared rooms. there, whereas Magnolia's all private room, private bath, you know. So it's a different setup. But again, it just goes back to being small, you know. But then you got guys like me. I mean, as an operator, I mean, I can pull out my phone right now and I can get on the cameras, right? And I can see and hear. Now, I can't see in bedrooms, but in all the common areas, I can, I can make sure that my staff is there, you know, that they're working, that they're not, you know, We're like being licensed. We're required to stay awake at

night. The night shift cannot sleep. And I have fired people before, you know, falling asleep, falling asleep. That's just, it's just a deal breaker for me. You know? And, um, I mean, I've actually hired someone before for night shift and they all interview really well, you know, and they talk a big game and, you know, a week or two in, I just happened to wake up one night and can't go back to sleep and I watched the cameras. And, you know, I'll never forget this one person that, you know, was working at the time. I didn't like the way it was. There was a dementia resident that was there, you know, at 3 AM just

walking in the living room, and the caregiver kind of fussed at her for blocking her view of the television.

Oh, wow.

Oh, geez.

Her shift ended at 6 AM. I pulled into the driveway at 6 AM.

Yeah.

And I said, you're not going to work here anymore. And I mean, you're out because it's just, A, you know, that's again going back to family and accountability. That might as well, that could have been my grandmother, right? You know, my mom. And so, um, but it, it comes down to the heart of the operator, I feel like, and, and just, you know, having really high standards.

Yeah.

Well, it's part of having like principles and values in place that, that you like, you're not going to allow an employee to cross. And once that Rubicon has been crossed, it's like, well, no, you can no longer participate because obviously you don't share the same values and principles that this organization is for. And that can be a couple of different things. I mean, honestly, that can be the fault of the employer for not explaining those properly or just the employee having a level of disrespect to not live up to those expectations.

Right.

Yeah. And either way, they're gone.

Yeah.

But that's whole— that's business stuff right there, man.

Yeah, for sure. What else?

What else?

Yeah. What else do we need to talk about?

Oh, we can talk about all kinds of stuff, man.

Yeah. I mean, we got—

you want to pull this clip? Because I think this is this Bill Maher clip. I think this one's actually interesting. And I'm actually interested to get Sean's reaction to it. So Bill Maher, who is obviously very vanilla and has no controversy around his thoughts and ideas, if you don't know him, he's— I actually kinda like his new podcast. Have you seen his new podcast?

I haven't listened to it.

It's called Club Random.

Okay.

I enjoy that a lot more than his HBO show. What's the the HBO show. It's, um, I don't know. That's, that's the one that this clip is from.

Yeah. Uh, yeah, I don't remember.

It used to be, um, Politically Incorrect, but now it's something else. Yeah, because that was back in the '90s.

Yeah, it's been a minute.

What is his show? Hang on, I'm just gonna Google it real quick. Bill Maher show.

I don't know. I don't either.

Real Time with Bill Maher.

Real Time. Yeah.

So, and he'll have a variety of guests on there, usually like political pundits and lobbyists and actors and comedians and just a hodgepodge of different people. Um, you got the clip ready?

I'm ready to go. Let's roll it. All right.

I saw this and sort of, I said, this is for once a story where they're actually doing something about income inequality because they talk about it all the time. And I'm like, How come I pay like most of my wages every year and and and I we're still income inequality? What do you want all my money?

They're proposing yes they do end hedge fund control of Americans' home homes act.

Okay, basically what this means is that Wall Street started buying homes not for them to live in just to have. Listen to this: they purchased 26% of the single family homes that sold in. June of 2023. Someplace like Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2022, investors purchased 17% of Charlotte's homes in cash.

And a lot of them more affordable homes. So like the people who are trying to buy their—

Right. So Senator Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, is, I guess, proposing this. He said Americans are bidding not against other families, they're bidding against the billionaires of America for these houses.

I saw this and I said, this is for once Yeah, this is, this is, this is, and this is not— I, I've heard other stories about this, and, and really most, most of the time when I've heard it, it's been people targeting BlackRock, which rightfully so.

Yeah.

Where they're buying up, like, not just like— they're not, they're not like buying like 1, 2, 3 houses. They're buying like a full book of houses.

Yeah.

Either like in a neighborhood or like in a community, like they're talking about in Charlotte, North Carolina. But like, I can't believe that it was that high of a percentage, and that was just like one month.

Man.

In, in 2023. Like, that's— And that's crazy. It's crazy.

Yeah.

And 17%.

I think this— I think one of the significant points that he mentioned in that story is that they paid cash.

Yeah. Um, yeah. And which means there's so many things that that means, but for the people selling those and affordable housing too, it's like, oh, you give me cash, it's so easy.

Yeah.

It's such an easy transaction. It's so easy.

Yeah.

And why wouldn't I take the cash?

You know, I think it was back in 2018, Warren Buffett was quoted saying that, you know, if he could, he would buy, you know, 200,000 single-family homes.

Mm-hmm.

You know, because I, I guess, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts, why do you think that the hedge funds are buying up, you know, large portfolios of single family homes?

I, I mean, like, my, my brain goes all kinds of different directions when, when you ask me a question like that. I mean, I, I think, I think probably my, my initial response to that is because they can see, they can foresee a, uh, a need that they can hold and then make a ton of money on the back end.

Yeah.

Um, that can be, that can be the only— I mean, in my mind, that's the only logical reason that you would do that, you know, or, or market manipulation.

Yeah. But that could be a factor. I, you know, if you follow, and everyone has a love-hate relationship with Grant Cardone.

Sure.

However, I think he is accurate when he, and he says this a lot, that America is gonna become a renter's nation.

For sure.

And you look at what the interest rates are doing right now. You know, it's not a good time unless you've just got cash to burn or paying cash for real estate and just not having a mortgage. These rates are still bananas, right? Yeah.

Oh yeah.

And so that is when these hedge funds are pulling capital and they're making big acquisitions like that, it's just another investment play because they can, of course, they can wholesale them, flip them or whatever. But I mean, really, They're just gonna create some really big, you know, property management deals. And, you know, but those, all of those homes combined will produce a cap rate or, yeah, you know, something that's appealing to their investors. Because, you know, a lot of the other investments aren't going so well.

Yeah. Well, I mean, well, and, and so one of the, one of the other things that's in trouble right now, I don't have the clip from this, but, like, banks are in trouble.

Yeah.

You know, and they're looking at being, like, upside down within, like, the next 2 years. They're talking about like 2025, over 300 banks being insolvent.

Wow.

And, and so, like, if you're an investment guy and you're invested in banks, and one of the big— biggest cash generators for banks is real estate, one of the ways that you could manipulate the market is to go like, you know what, we're gonna— we're actually going to reduce the inventory across the country so that home prices, if supply goes down, price is going to go up.

Yeah.

And, and so, well, who's going to be the, the biggest winner on that? It's, it's the banks who are writing the mortgages, right, for those. And, and so, like, why wouldn't it be in their best interest to just have real estate that they hold, keep off the market, especially if it's affordable housing? Because those— I think they make more on FHAs than anything else. And so you want those, you want those first-time home buyers to be on your products to be buying new real estate at the highest possible price because that's where you make your money.

Yeah. It's a game. It's a money game.

And if you're BlackRock, you can do that.

Yeah.

And so I think it's worth looking at going like, hey, why are you guys— if there's smoke, there's fire. And so it's worth looking at.

Yeah.

And I think it's weird that it takes somebody like Bill Maher to go like, hey, Yeah. Something, something's going on over here. Yeah. You know, but like, you know, but like even, you know, you talk about like a Grant Cardone, I think, like, correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't kept up with him in a while, but like he's sort of notorious for like not owning the places where he lives.

100%. Yeah. You know, and, you know, because I'm, I, I like real estate and I've been following and trying to, you know, be an investor and I'm, we own several properties now. I mean, What's the analogy? Live where you want to live and do business where it makes sense. That's one of the sayings. But yeah, I mean, not owning your home. And to me, I think it kind of goes back to something that Robert Kiyosaki used to say in the famous Rich Dad Poor Dad book, right? That your own home is a liability. It's not an asset.

Right.

Whereas a lot of people, Now, I kind of disagree with some of that. I mean, you know, I've been in my home 10 years and it has appreciated significantly.

You got equity.

Yeah, got equity. And I can, I can pull that out and make another move if I want to. I can borrow against myself and go buy more real estate with it. So, you know, if you're— if it's in the right area and appreciation kicks in, great, you know. But I think the concept is that the American dream has changed a little bit, you know. Go, you know, go to college, you know, get a degree, get a job, buy a house, you know. white picket fence kind of thing. And the dream has kind of shifted. And now, I mean, my oldest son is 25. I mean, he'll be looking at some of those things, but the landscape has

completely changed from what it used to be.

Yeah.

And of course now, I mean, I've been teaching my older boys, they live in College Station, a lot of rental properties there. And I'm trying to convince them, I'm trying to get them as an investor to shift their thinking. You guys are thinking, one of these days, I'm going to buy a house. And I'm like, dude, buy a fourplex.

Yes.

Right.

You live in one of the units.

House hack it.

Yeah. And house hack your way using an FHA loan at 3% down or whatever it is these days. And get started being an investor and let those tenants. And so, I'm, I'm teaching them, you know, the game.

Yeah.

Because it's once you get going and you start acquiring those assets. So going back to, you know, your house is an asset or liability, I think the answer is it just depends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you, how do you use that, that vehicle?

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, because, I mean, like, you know, if one of the things that we do, like, just, just like a simple, simple thing is like we can rent our house out to ourselves. think it's 4 times a year for, for company events.

No, it's 14 times a year.

14 times a year?

Yes.

I don't think it's that many.

It is 14 times a year.

I don't think that's—

100%.

No, that seems to be pretty—

It's 14 per— it's 14 times.

It's not. That's not, that's not true.

It is.

Yeah, I'm not wrong on this.

Oh boy.

You can look, look it up. 14 house It's called the Augusta Rule. I'm quite familiar.

Up to 14 days. It's not 14 times.

Still the same.

That's not the same.

It is.

Okay, 14 days.

14 days.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

It's not 4.

But you're, you know, anyway, it's, it's, it's a way that you can use your private residence.

Sure.

Legally, yes.

Now, when you get HOAs in play, and, you know, I mean, if, if you've been following vacation rentals for a while now, I mean, municipalities and, you know, cities, I mean, they're— I mean, VRBO is pretty much shut down in New York. But I mean, even towns like College Station, you know, they've got ordinances now that, you know, on game day, I mean, cannot rent your own. And people squeak by it all the time.

Of course. People using their lawns as parking lots.

Lawns as parking lots. That's a thing. But, you know, I mean, I've known people that, you know, they actually live in College Station, and when it's game day, they've, you know, they've got it listed and they go stay somewhere else and they rent it, you know, and make some pretty dang good money. You know, I personally would feel a little weird about just grabbing just my essentials for the weekend And letting someone else just hang out at my house.

But with all my other essentials.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I know.

Just don't touch, yeah. Don't touch this or that. But, you know, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a real estate play.

It is.

It's a real estate play. It is. You know, it's just, you're getting resourceful at that point.

Yeah. Well, in a place like College Station, these college towns, like people are there and they're ready to spend money.

100%.

And they have to. They have to find a place to stay. They have to find a place to park. They have to find a place to eat. They have to do those things, you know.

Well, and also in situations like that, I would imagine there's not like a lot of like Venmo going on. There's like cash exchange. It's like good luck tracking any of it.

No, they're not going to.

So like, like, you know, sorry, just be honest about it. I mean, like, you know, you put cash in my hand, like you're never going to— that's not going anywhere. airport?

No, no, absolutely not. No.

Yeah, it's—

it—

I mean, like, it— I, I do think it comes back to, like, how creative you're gonna use that entity, you know?

Absolutely.

But, like, you're right, HOAs can just be a pain in the butt.

100%.

They— they— I feel like they exist to be a pain in the butt.

Yeah.

Like, and I get it, they're, they're, they're there for some level of protection, but Come on, man. Yeah, like some of it's like, really?

Okay, you know, the thing with HOAs, I get the, the whole principle behind it.

Oh yeah.

And, you know, I'm thankful for the neighborhood and the HOA that we have. I mean, you know, they keep the entry of our neighborhood nice with fresh flowers and the parks in our neighborhood looking nice. But where HOAs get interesting is when you've got, you know, a crazy person that's on the board and lives in the neighborhood and literally is just they take it so seriously that they're driving around the neighborhood looking at your grass, looking for things. And I'm like, come on.

The telescopic lens.

100%.

The measuring tape on the grass.

Exactly. So, I mean, it's, it's when people, uh, have nothing better to do with their time and they just wanna, you know, wreak havoc and, and just look for problems where there really are none.

It happens.

It does happen.

So I, I will tell you, I'll, I'll tell you one where it's a good thing. So like, my folks live in a neighborhood that has no HOA. They actually dissolved the HOA in the mid-'80s. And it's, it's a neighborhood where I think most of the residents have 1 to 2 acres, some people with more, but most of them have 1 to 2 acres. And, you know, as it's becoming aging community.

Yeah.

People have sold their houses and new people have moved in and realized, like, oh, I'm in an unregulated area, which was, you know, great for our family back in the '90s because we could operate a business out of there without an HOA breathing down our neck.

Mhmm.

Still operate our business out there. But 2 doors down from them was a buddy of mine. He ended up moving to Idaho. and sold his family's home, and a guy bought it and said that he was going to turn it into a rehabilitation facility, which ended up being a front for a crime syndicate that he was using to flip cars. And for the first year, the cops were in the front lawn at least once a week.

Wow.

And not only that, all the neighbors got upset