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Senior Living Real Estate: Demand, Trends & Opportunities · Brick by Brick - Wealth Building Conversations

• Loren Wernette: So if somebody brought me or you an opportunity to invest in one of these things, right? And they were the, that sponsor was the operator. What are the things that you would have them look at about the operator, about the facility, about the business plan that you've noticed in your business that would be massive red flags for whether this is going to be successful or Jerry Vinci: That's a great question. Yeah. I think the first question I would ask, and again, it depends on this, if it's a small residential home, they're going to know a lot of these answers because they only have like five residents and they're probably doing five of the jobs themselves. They're the operator. They're probably handling, you know, managing the home, everything like that. So they know a lot more about it. But if we're talking about like a typical senior living community, first and foremost, do they understand who moves into their community? and who's the one making the decision of who gets to move in because a lot of times communities get it wrong they're marketing directly to the seniors but it's actually the adult children who are making the decisions or who are influencing the decision so even for independent living even for assisted living where that older adults still you know, they're not excuse me, they're not in cognitive decline You know, they can they certainly can make decisions for themselves. They're still they're still their children are still weighing in. So having, making sure that, you know, that this community understands that first and foremost, that's, that's who they're talking to. Um, second probably would be like, do they have a repeatable path to stabilization? So, um, you know, when, when a community is acquired or built, you know, the first thing they want to do is, is lease up or, you know, make sure that their, their occupancy is sound getting to that 80, 85 % mark at minimum, you know, what's their plan for doing that? What's their plan for doing that? And then once they get there, how do they plan to maintain that? Do they have other buildings in their portfolio that they've done that with already? I would probably want to look at comparable assets and see if they have something else. And then in terms of conversions, how long is it taking them from the time somebody inquires and says, I'm interested, to the time they actually move in? Believe it or not, some of these places, it's like 180 days. which is crazy. And the only way that's possible is if they're not executing. There's something in the process, whether it's marketing, sales or operations, that's not working the way that it should. Loren Wernette: Mm-hmm. Jerry Vinci: And so they're just, it's taking far longer than it should. And obviously, nobody's gonna stick around and wait for you to get your act together for six months. So they're just leaving Loren Wernette: Right. Jerry Vinci: a lot of money on the table when they do that. Loren Wernette: Welcome to another episode of Brick by Brick. Today, my guest has spent 30 years in sales marketing operations. Today, he's the founder and CEO of CCR Growth, a demand generation firm built exclusively for senior living providers. He helps communities go from distressed occupancy levels to full in under a year. He's also the host of the podcast Leads to Leases, the number one senior living marketing podcast on Apple podcasts. And in 2005, he launched Growthly. a performance-based model built specifically for boutique senior living operators. Welcome to Brick by Brick, Jerry Vinci. Jerry Vinci: Thanks so much for having me. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. So we talked a little bit before the show and I have honestly been in the real estate space for quite a while and I hear people talking about the senior living space and I think a lot of people I know and I talked to kind of know that you know the the baby boomers, the first the oldest of those are starting to get to 80 years old. There's a whole slew of them coming after there. You see some senior living homes kind of around but. I'm not sure that anyone understands the opportunity that's coming with that amount of people moving and from an investing side of things like the money that's potentially there, the occupancy levels that you can have in the senior living facility, or, you know, we think of them all as these big, huge facilities, but there's also these, you call, boutique of 10 to 50 beds, you know, and how you can get on there. So I'm really excited to kind of hear all about that, but before we get in that, Tell us a little bit about how you got into this space. Jerry Vinci: Yeah, that's a, that goes all the way back actually to my teenage years. all four of my grandparents went through some type of senior care, whether it was in home care. my one grandmother had dementia, so she ended up in a, in a skilled nursing facility. my other grandfather, he just needed some assistance with like activities of daily living. So he ended up in like an assisted living place. So I kind of saw all the different. types of communities there were out there. And I also saw the good and the bad. My grandma being in the skilled nursing was not a good experience for her, not a good experience for our family. So I got to see that side of it. I also got to see like how families kind of struggled to make those decisions of in terms of like placement for a loved one. It's really a stressful time. So I, you know, I kind of put that on a shelf, didn't really think about it again until, until I started my marketing journey. I was a After college, I was an art director for corporate communications company. I hated it. was like, I think I was there for like six months and then I'm like, I'm out. I can't do this. Started my own agency in 2004 and kind of quickly knew I wanted to niche down and I wanted to do something more meaningful and passionate with my work. I didn't just want to like help businesses sell more widgets. Right. And, so trying to find something that was along that humanity route. you know, I kind of fell back into senior living and and really thought that that would be a great niche to be in. Just because it's human centered, it's also somewhat recession proof because they're not going anywhere. It's not gonna get replaced by AI. There's all reasons why being on this side of the fence, it makes sense to focus in on a business like this or industry like this. But then yeah, as time went on, We acquired a couple of senior living clients and we just ended up falling in love with the space. then, you know, just we're like, yeah, this is all we want to do. So we've built our entire team around, senior living started off as like a marketing agency. Now we're doing demand generation, which is a little different. It's more about kind of building trust upfront, building trust, credibility, authority, all of those types of things upfront. so your customers are kind of like already informed and already interested, like as soon as they, as soon as they find you, they're they're. Literally raising their hand and saying, me more versus marketing or advertising, which is, you know, kind of like just throwing up a sign and saying, Hey, you know, we're over here. Are you interested in what we're selling? It's, it's a very different approach, which, which lends itself well to senior living. So that's kind of how I got my start. yeah. And we just, we niche down officially, I think like four years ago, exclusive into the senior living market. So now that's, this is all we do. Loren Wernette: Got it. Can you set the stage a little bit? So when you say senior living, I think a lot of people have the like grandma from Happy Gilmore type facility in their head, right? And I have a slightly more knowledge. So my wife was a nurse RN and she worked in geriatrics. And so she worked at a facility where they came in fairly self sufficient, just had a little bit of help and then kind of migrated through the facility all the way towards the end. So just. Maybe give a definition of what senior living is and the different phases or the different pieces of it that someone might be. Jerry Vinci: Yeah, I mean, you could say senior living, you could say senior care really just depends on your scope, I guess. If we're saying senior living, we're talking about building a community of some kind where older adults will go to live typically 65 and above. But in reality, that's not really the case. The majority of residents in most communities are 85 and above. So when we say we're targeting the 65 plus demographic, it's really That's really early in the process and most people are not ready to make any major life changes at that point. in terms of like levels of care, there's everything from like independent living, which is like, you know, I'm 46 right now in 20 years. Maybe I want to downsize, right? And I just want to simplify my life. I don't want, I don't want to have to cook clean, you know, take out the garbage, any of that stuff, do my laundry anymore. Maybe I just want to live somewhere that has all those. So Independent living typically is like an all-inclusive option where younger older adults can go just to kind of like simplify and be among peers. I think that's an important thing too, because this loneliness epidemic is pretty huge, especially among the older population. Then you go to like the next phase from that is assisted living, which is basically like independent, but you just need some help maybe getting dressed maybe with meal preparation or you know, some other activity of daily living, that's where kind of assisted living would come in. From there, you get into the more high acuity spaces like memory care, dementia, Alzheimer's, and then you also get into like skilled nursing, or maybe somebody's got like a complex multiple situation where they've got dementia, but they've also got, you know, some other chronic illness or, or issue that, has to be dealt with. So those are kind of like the major four kind of levels of senior living. But then you also have in-home care, which can range from like, you know, non-medical assistance where somebody's just coming to the house to help out taking care of the home, all the way to like someone who's coming in to like administer medication or maybe somebody has dementia and they're still at home, you know, and they need somebody there 24 seven. it's kind of kind of roundabout way of explaining this industry. Loren Wernette: Got it. And so for your business, are you focused primarily on the location based assisted living versus like the traveling nurse and that type of. Jerry Vinci: Yeah, we've worked with both in home care as well as senior living communities, but for us profitability wise, it doesn't, it's not as lucrative to work with in home care just because there's so much turnover. they're getting paid on an hourly basis versus, you know, senior living where it's like a monthly rent and the longevity of, of senior living, on average is about two years. So if you, if you bring one person into that community, you know, and they're paying let's just say for 7,500 a month, you know, for two years, that's a pretty decent amount of revenue that they're generating from that one, that one move in. it's their budgets are bigger, um, you know, and then they're willing to put more behind it because they know that those residents are going to be there along. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I would assume, not to be insensitive, but I would assume the churn of a customer isn't very high either. You're not moving from one facility to another. Jerry Vinci: Not usually. I think the satisfaction rate is in the high eighties or low nineties for people who've been like surveyed and asked, you know, how what's their experience like since moving into a community. Most people are pretty happy with it. There's, know, just like car shopping today. I mean, there's so many options out there that usually if, if you're not in an exigent circumstance where you have to find something like right now, you can window shop. can take your time, do the tours, go eat some meals there, talk to the residents. You can definitely do your due diligence far in advance so that it's not such a daunting shift. Loren Wernette: Got it, got it. And so from a operations standpoint, like what kind of occupancy do we do you see with the assisted living and the senior care facilities? And do you have an idea on where margins sit? I mean, I obviously like if you're comparing it to multifamily, there's going to be a high lot higher expense just because you have higher staffing costs. You have more specific facilities, things of that nature. But you know, Where are you at from an occupancy standpoint? What kind of expense per unit cost are we looking at here? What are the overall return on investments for these type of facilities? Jerry Vinci: Yeah, it's a good question. It depends on the type of community. I would say the, the occupancy rates will, will shift. for example, independent living, I think in the last quarter of 2025, it was somewhere around 89 % to 90 % occupancy across the board. Assisted living is a little lower than that just because I think again, there's a little bit more churn there because just the nature of like people are, you know, they're, they're a little older. They may not live as long in the community. It's like an independent living. think the average length of stay is like over 10 years. So yeah, that's, and that's why most of these places are nearly full because they they've been living there for so long. in terms of like profitability, it really depends on the operator and how they have things running. mean, if it's a, if, if they have, 50 different locations, you know, they probably have their operations team dialed in pretty well where, you know, they have a repeatable system in place, but if it's like a one standalone community, they may not have the same profit margins that a larger operator might. I would say any community that's typically above 80 % is profitable. I've seen ones that are profitable below that, but it's pretty rare. The thing to keep in mind with senior living too is it's like five or six businesses in one. You've got the residential side, which is the living. situation, you've got the commercial real estate side, you've got hospitality, you've got dining, you've got entertainment, you've got healthcare, all in the same space. So whoever's operating this has to think about all of those different moving parts and departments and how, you know, how to make sure that at the end of the day, it's all about the resonance and making sure that they're having the best experience possible, as well as their families too. yeah, it can get like COVID, example, I mean, you saw the profit margins of most providers went from like 30 or 40 % down to like five to 10%. And so it took probably two to three years for them to claw Loren Wernette: Yeah. Jerry Vinci: back from that to really, you know, hit the ground running again now where we're at, which is challenging just because there's such an influx of seniors about to hit the market, but we don't have the housing to accommodate all of them. which is something I think your audience is gonna be really interested in learning more about. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I mean you've peaked my interest 4030 to 40 Jerry Vinci: Mm-hmm. Loren Wernette: % margins, 80 % occupancy, staying for you know 10 to 2 to 10 years depending on where they fall in that like those are some pretty big lifetime value numbers. And on top of the appreciation you're getting off the building. So I guess tell me about the inventory. If you're at 80 % occupancy across the industry and you know your baby boomers are the. at the high end was 80 and at the low end 65. So they're just starting to kind of come in. Plus people are living longer, right? Average lifespan has now in almost 80 years old. Tell me about where we're at inventory wise for beds in the country. Jerry Vinci: Well, the life expectancy is interested too, because there's, I'm actually studying to be a certified senior advisor right now. So I, know weird facts about that, but they actually measure life expectancy twice. Once when you're born and then once again, once you hit, I think it's, I think it's 60 or 65. So basically once you hit that, your life expectancy actually increases significantly. So if you make it to 65, your life expectancy is no longer like, you know, 76, I think it is for men. Um, it becomes like 83 or 84 for men. So it goes up quite a bit. Um, yeah. So I think like demographic wise, if we think about it, you know, the first baby boomers turn 80 this year, the, the last baby boomers turned 65 in 2030. Okay. So we've got a couple of years until that is a 2030, I think it's 2030. Uh, yeah, all baby boomers are, 65 by 2030 and then by 2034 It's the first time in America that there will be more people over the age of 65 than there are children in this country in this country so it's a major shift Loren Wernette: Hmm. Jerry Vinci: and I think I saw something crazy was like right now the ratio of seniors to to everyone else was like 30 30 to there were 30 adults for every senior and by like 2040 there's only gonna be 12 adults for every senior so That that's a demographic shift that's definitely happening. I mean, we're, we're adding about 400,000, uh, older adults over the age of 85 every year between now to the year, like 2045. So we have this massive influx, which, you know, that doesn't, maybe that doesn't sound like a lot to somebody, but if you think about that means that the population of 85 plus is going to more than double between now and 2040. Okay. So, and not all of them are going to be looking for housing too. Let's think like probably. I think on average it's anywhere from for 85 plus, it's anywhere from 10 to 20 % of people who actually move into senior housing. So, but if you have that, that amount of people, obviously that's a huge increase in the number of people looking for housing. So now if we look at housing, the housing numbers are kind of are crazy. And a lot of this happened because of COVID like, you know, production basically stopped construction stopped during COVID getting, getting materials and supplies was very difficult. the supply chain was all over the map. Since then, the cost of materials has not really come down. So people building has not really increased the way it should. We look at 2025, for example, at the start of 2025, there was only about 19,500 construction projects that were active in senior living or 19,500 units. I'm sorry, not even construction Loren Wernette: Mm. Jerry Vinci: projects, but units that were actively being worked on or built or slated to be completed. And in in q1 of 25 there was only about 1,500 projects that had even started now Given the numbers that I just told you about the number of older adults that are going to be coming into this market We need about a hundred to a hundred and twenty five thousand units every year between now and 2040 to be able to accommodate everybody So we're we're at like one less than one-third of the housing that we actually need Loren Wernette: Hmm. Interesting so like have you seen that? Has this been noticed by people and are they starting to try to build more or there's like I can just build multifamily because I don't have to have the permits and I don't you know I don't it takes less time and I can get I mean there's I don't know what the loan offers options are for you know building a senior care facility. But I guess what are the trends in building? Are we just still seeing not very many being built? Or are there starting to be movements towards building more of these? Because it seems like a pretty lucrative niche. Jerry Vinci: Yeah. There's like, there's multiple challenges with it. think number one is the fact that you've got the baby boomer population that are extremely particular about, about what they want and don't want. And there's going to be a lot of inventory out there that they don't want because it's old Loren Wernette: Hmm. Jerry Vinci: and they want something new and fresh and, and, know, updated. So not only do we have older inventory that needs to be updated, but then we need to get new inventory made to accommodate all the housing. So that's. That's challenge number one. it's definitely a problem. It's, I haven't heard anyone with a realistic solution other than, you know, we need to repurpose say there's a lot of empty corporate space right now. because a lot of businesses went remote and they just never went back to the office. So there's a lot of talk about revamping some commercial space into some type of senior, senior living. the other option is kind of what you're talking about is where people are taking, residential homes and turning them into like micro communities. So they're called, they're called Rawls. They're residential assisted living communities. And you'll see sometimes somebody might buy up like an entire cul-de-sac right of like four or five homes. And they'll each one will, will house, five to seven residents and, and each, each home will have like a dedicated nurse on staff, something like that. So it's more personalized. It's, you know, more one-on-one attention that they would get and say like a larger community. but obviously the cost, the cost is pretty significant too. it's pretty lucrative though. I mean, there's, you know, if you figure like a large community, if they're charging anywhere from five to $10,000 a month, a small micro community can probably charge, you know, starting it. Like they probably start at 9,000 and go up to, I've seen them go up to like 16, 17,000. per person per month, so that can be pretty lucrative. Loren Wernette: And and that it costs. So let's say it's ten thousand a month. What what is actually cash flowing off that? Like you got a lot more expenses. Is it so if it was a multifamily, you you're looking for a couple hundred bucks a month of cash flow for something like that. Are you talking thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars of cash flow per bet? Jerry Vinci: I mean, it depends on the operator how well, if Loren Wernette: Sure. Jerry Vinci: it's a well-run operation, it's in the thousands for sure. I I've spoken with two, these two guys who had a couple of residential assisted living communities that they, and they were just real estate guys who were like, Hey, let's get in on this. And within two years, they had the mortgage paid off to one of the Loren Wernette: Mm. Jerry Vinci: places. That's how lucrative it was. So, and they knew nothing about, mean, they were like fresh green in terms of, you know, the senior living space. And in two years, they were able to turn it around that fast. Loren Wernette: Got it. So, so are you seeing, cause I know you started growthly, which is focused on the boutique. the 10 to Jerry Vinci: Mm-hmm. Loren Wernette: 50 unit assisted living facilities, are you seeing an uptrend in more and more of those or are there more of the ones of the little bit that are being constructed? Are they these large institutional type facilities that are bringing units on? Jerry Vinci: There's a lot of like the larger players in the market that are consolidating and buying up a lot of the smaller communities that were like, you know, mom and pop owned that type of thing, folding them into their portfolio. think their mindset there is, we don't have to build if we acquire. So we'll just acquire, you know, but that doesn't really solve the house. It's just moving, you know, changing the name on the building from this one to this one. So that doesn't really solve the problem. the midsize communities at 10 to 50 Mark, I think that's more realistic because getting one of those up and running is far quicker than say like a three to 600 unit, you know, complex. Cause that's a whole, that's like building a college. It's like a campus. have, they have to have everything there. mean, I've seen ones now that they're building hospitals on the campus, so they don't even have to leave the campus to go to the doctor or anything. so those midsize ones are starting to pop up just cause they're quicker. faster, easier to build, less red tape. But then, yeah, you're seeing a lot more of these residential homes, depending on the area. I mean, in California alone, I think we have over 9,000 residential assisted living communities. So they're definitely growing in size. Loren Wernette: So if somebody brought me or you an opportunity to invest in one of these things, right? And they were the, that sponsor was the operator. What are the things that you would have them look at about the operator, about the facility, about the business plan that you've noticed in your business that would be massive red flags for whether this is going to be successful or Jerry Vinci: That's a great question. Yeah. I think the first question I would ask, and again, it depends on this, if it's a small residential home, they're going to know a lot of these answers because they only have like five residents and they're probably doing five of the jobs themselves. They're the operator. They're probably handling, you know, managing the home, everything like that. So they know a lot more about it. But if we're talking about like a typical senior living community, first and foremost, do they understand who moves into their community? and who's the one making the decision of who gets to move in because a lot of times communities get it wrong they're marketing directly to the seniors but it's actually the adult children who are making the decisions or who are influencing the decision so even for independent living even for assisted living where that older adults still you know, they're not excuse me, they're not in cognitive decline You know, they can they certainly can make decisions for themselves. They're still they're still their children are still weighing in. So having, making sure that, you know, that this community understands that first and foremost, that's, that's who they're talking to. Um, second probably would be like, do they have a repeatable path to stabilization? So, um, you know, when, when a community is acquired or built, you know, the first thing they want to do is, is lease up or, you know, make sure that their, their occupancy is sound getting to that 80, 85 % mark at minimum, you know, what's their plan for doing that? What's their plan for doing that? And then once they get there, how do they plan to maintain that? Do they have other buildings in their portfolio that they've done that with already? I would probably want to look at comparable assets and see if they have something else. And then in terms of conversions, how long is it taking them from the time somebody inquires and says, I'm interested, to the time they actually move in? Believe it or not, some of these places, it's like 180 days. which is crazy. And the only way that's possible is if they're not executing. There's something in the process, whether it's marketing, sales or operations, that's not working the way that it should. Loren Wernette: Mm-hmm. Jerry Vinci: And so they're just, it's taking far longer than it should. And obviously, nobody's gonna stick around and wait for you to get your act together for six months. So they're just leaving Loren Wernette: Right. Jerry Vinci: a lot of money on the table when they do that. Loren Wernette: It sounds like pretty typical business owners more focused on the fulfillment side than the sales side. And then the sales falls off and then you have this slacking off of new business, right? Jerry Vinci: Yeah. mean, the biggest challenge is that the execution is the biggest challenge that I think operators have because it's such a complex business and immediately most operators will say, we need more leads. We need more leads. Our leads are not converting, so we just need more of them. But it's like, that's actually the wrong approach because getting more leads in the door doesn't do anything, but tie up your sales team even more when they should be spending time, you know, on working with the people who are actually in the pipeline who are genuinely interested. did, there was a survey I did about two years ago with 30,000 sales professionals and senior living. And I asked them like, how long do you typically take, with, with a qualified prospect and, and over 75 % of them said 15 hours or more. So you can imagine like getting more leads in the pipeline. When you, when you're saying that I need to spend 15 hours to get this person to the finish line, that's not going to cut it. You know, So it's not, it's not about, it's not the lead game. It's really like looking at the other areas of their business. You know, I always say that like senior living, it's, it's a trust business first and foremost. And you know, you have to establish trust and rapport with your prospect as quickly and early in the, in the process as possible. So taking the time, you know, to make sure that they understand that you care, that you, you know, their situation that you They're a good fit for the community and here are all the reasons why. Let me show you, you know, if they're taking the time to do that, they're more likely to convert that person or at least move them further down, down that pipeline. Then, then, you know, if they're just worried about numbers all day long. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I mean, they're from an empathy standpoint, they're trying to find the place that they're going to live for probably the rest of their life. And they won't know they want to be comfortable, but their family also wants to know that their loved one is comfortable and as they can come visit and do all the things and you know, they don't have to worry about it because I got to believe that some of it is the family member needs some level of burden taken off of them, but they don't want that burden taken off at the expense of worry. Right. Jerry Vinci: Yeah, and I think because people are waiting longer to move in now, like we talked about, life expectancy has increased, longevity has increased, but the cost of senior living is not cheap and the majority of Americans can't afford it, honestly. Assisted living, the average cost of assisted living is like $70,000 a year. And then for like skilled nursing, for a... For a semi-private room, I think it's like 115,000 a year, and then for a private room, it's like 130,000. So most people can't afford that, and the majority of, I think it's less than 20 % of senior living residents are on Medicaid. So most of it is private pay. And so Loren Wernette: Got it. Jerry Vinci: that's a huge challenge right there. So. Loren Wernette: So at the top end you're talking 10 years in 1.3 million to just to live there You know at the bottom end 10 years 7, you know hundred thousand dollars. It's a lot of money Jerry Vinci: There was a survey last year, somebody did and said something crazy, like 45 % of adults said they're gonna rely on the government to take care of their retirement needs. And when I see those numbers, I'm just like, I don't know how much you think you get for social security, but that's not gonna cover anything. So I'm not exactly sure Loren Wernette: Yeah, I mean, Jerry Vinci: how that's gonna work. Loren Wernette: I don't understand that mentality either. I'm just a little bit younger than you, and I've just assumed that I'm not gonna get anything meaningful for Social Security my entire life, and that it was all gonna be on me. So, maybe I'm just different than other Jerry Vinci: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Loren Wernette: people. So. Jerry Vinci: No, I, you know, going back to the real estate question too, in terms of like getting in on this, I think there's probably some developers out there who are unsure about the space only because this swell is only going to last for so long, right? We Loren Wernette: Hmm. Jerry Vinci: have, we have all of these older adults entering the market and then by like 2045 or 2050, you know, that There's far less Gen Xers out there than there are baby boomers. So what do we do with all that inventory then? So we're going to build all these buildings. Loren Wernette: But there's far more millennials than boomers, right? But you got to lag. Jerry Vinci: Boomers then? No, think boomers are aren't they the largest generation? Think so. Loren Wernette: I thought, okay, I don't know. I thought millennials were similar. Yeah, we'll fact check that, but either way, it's Jerry Vinci: I'm not sure though, I have to look at that. Yeah. Loren Wernette: not like the need for senior living is gonna go away. It's just a matter of if there's too much of it, right? And then you've got the supply and demand issue where maybe for a couple of decades, you have really good demand and you have make a lot of money. And then, can you withstand having lower occupancies as the Gen Xers come in and the baby boomers die off? But I think the other thing to consider there is, how far our life expectancy is going to creep up. mean, even if Gen Xers are smaller, but Baby Boomers start living into their late 90s to early hundreds, that's gonna increase the demand that's needed for quite a while. Jerry Vinci: Yeah. Yeah. mean, if we're looking at the whole population, I think it said something like for every 10 years, we, we gain like nine months of life or something to our life expectancy, just based on our, you know, advances in technology, healthcare, wellness lifestyle, all those types of things. so yeah, who knows in 20 years, how, what the life expectancy will look like. yeah, it's, it's definitely, that would be one thing I would say if like, you're in it for the long term and you're looking for like a 30, 30 year investment of some kind. Maybe this isn't the one for you, but if you're definitely looking to like get in, make your money and get out in the next 15 years, by far and away, I mean, this is the fastest growing industry out there. mean, healthcare, anything healthcare between now and 2050 is a sure fire bet just because you've got, you you've got all these seniors entering the market, but along with that, you've got You're going to have to have the healthcare workers to, to compensate for that. You know, you've got, what is it? nine between now and 2034, I think we need 9.7 million additional, create care workers than we have right now. you know, so obviously there's a lot of training that has to go into that. There's that's a ton of, of demand or growth. I'm sorry. That that's not even being filled right now. I mean, you could pretty much write your own ticket at that point. You know, I just think with like, with everybody being so afraid what AI is going to do and here we are, we're like, well, you know, here's a, here's an industry where you don't have to worry about that. And you've got 10 million jobs that are available, you know, in the next decade. Let's, let's focus on that. So healthcare, healthcare Loren Wernette: Right. Jerry Vinci: is going to see a major boom for sure. Loren Wernette: Yeah. And most of the investors that I deal with, I mean, they aren't looking for 30, 40 year returns. I mean, there's some people that Jerry Vinci: Yeah. Loren Wernette: are putting some there. They're looking at, you know, what can I put my money in for the next decade to two decades, maybe a decade and a half, uh, and then see a really nice exit and then either 10 31 it or, or use that money to live off of or whatever. Um, and, as a side, I looked it up while you were talking. So the boomers are approximately 70 million people. The Gen X is 65 million, Gen Z is 68, and Millennials is 72. Jerry Vinci: Woo, wow, go millennials. That's awesome. Okay. Okay. Well, there we go. So, so then Loren Wernette: Yeah, well, it's all those boomers having babies, right? So. Jerry Vinci: it, it may be the long-term investment does make sense if, if we're going to see that swell, you know, kind of kick back in after the Gen Xers. That makes sense. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I mean, maybe the other piece you got to think about is like what you're talking about with the existing homes, right? There's going to have to be some updating. You know, there will probably be some regulatory changes along the way. And so it's not a I'm going to build this 300 unit facility in 2030 and then sit on it until 2060. Right. There there will be a lot of additional infrastructure changes that probably have to happen. But I think overall you're fairly safe. There will always be old people unless some. huge natural disaster happens. And elderly people will have to have some place to live, right? The biggest question is, will there be enough of a population to afford it? Jerry Vinci: That yeah, that I mean, that's that's the question right there. I don't I don't really know how we solve I mean, I think at some point that government's gonna need to get involved with that because like, you look at skilled nursing versus assisted living right now. And most skilled nursing communities do take Medicare or Medicaid, I'm sorry, because people essentially have to spend down their savings to get in there. But that that's what Medicaid was built for. It's it's for people who need long term residential care. So that's not a surprise, but assisted living is rarely covered. There's like three or four states, I think, that cover some assisted livings in terms of insurance. So that's gonna have to change because there's, like, if you think about the difference between assisted living and skilled nursing, like skilled nursing is like someone who is like, they're bedridden or they've got some type of chronic health challenge or mobility challenge or something like that where where they're literally being taken care of 24 seven assisted living. Most of them are able to get around on their own. They're not in some type of cognitive decline. the fact that you have to be at this higher level of care to get any assistance in terms of from insurance or from the government, it's really gonna hinder a lot of people's ability to do that as an option. And so what does that do? That means that people end up staying at home. And then, then you have the issue with, with caregivers. So there's, what was it 60 right now, there's like 63 million caregivers in America, family caregivers. So that's like one in four adults as a family caregiver. And, and 80 % of them don't get paid. So, you know, they're, juggling their kids, their job, you know, their home life, along with taking care of a loved one. And you're probably going to see more multi-generational. multi-generational homes just because there's going to be a lack of housing. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I mean, I know that they've started seeing more of that in California just because of the housing prices and the kids just move into their parents house because the basis on the house is like $200,000 and the kids are never going to be able to afford, you know, a single family home. But that's a, that's a whole different issue. Yeah. Talk, talk to me. Go ahead. Jerry Vinci: You do see that in, sorry, you see that in Arizona too though. They're starting to build homes with the ADU units on, like Loren Wernette: Yeah. Jerry Vinci: already built, just for that purpose. So it's definitely in people's minds. Loren Wernette: I mean, it's a common, it's a common thing, at least from my understanding in like Latin countries and in a lot of Asian countries where you just have, you have grandma and grandpa living with the parents. We have the kids and that's just the normal thing in the United States. Our culture just hasn't been something that we've, you we've always like, let's move out of our parents' house and you get space and you just, everybody can buy a home. But as housing affordability becomes harder and more, less and less attainable, you know, I think you'll start seeing more and more of that where. Someone bought a house in 1986 and now everyone's just still living in there and they just kind of keep adding people and people dying often. It's not Jerry Vinci: You know. Loren Wernette: like it's not a totally common thing because I grew up in the house that my grandfather grew up in. So the house stayed in the family. We didn't always live in it together. Jerry Vinci: Yeah, I was, I was curious about that a while ago too, as to why, why it's different here in the States versus other places. And one of my podcast guests a while back was telling me about that. She basically said that I think it was like in the, in the sixties, was the fifties or sixties, was the first time that like corporate America started, transplanting people from, from their community into other locations. And that basically broke up like the traditional family unit where the entire family lived in this one area and stayed in this one area their entire life. Now you've got family members in New Jersey and California and New York and Michigan. So everybody's spread out to the point where like you don't have the same support structure that we used to have back in the day. And I know, you know, my parents live in New Jersey. My sister lives in New York. I live in California. So if something were to happen, you know, one of us is going to have to move to take care of the other one. Loren Wernette: Yeah, I mean my corporate job years ago moved me from Michigan to North Carolina and other Jerry Vinci: There you go. Loren Wernette: than other than me, everyone else either lives. I have one brother that lives an hour from my parents, but every else lives within four miles of my where I grew up. So Jerry Vinci: Yeah. Yep. Loren Wernette: so so I can kind of relate to that pretty heavily, right? Jerry Vinci: Mm-hmm. Loren Wernette: So I think maybe I think the other piece of that is we touched on a little bit the regionality of senior living. And I'll give you an example of why I'm thinking about this. When my grandmother was in assisted living, there was a home, you know, three miles from our house that she went to. Recently, we were looking at doing a trip back to Michigan, and that facility is now an Airbnb. And so and I have to believe that there's just a lot less people in that area as they migrate away. So from your perspective, like what kind of regionality are you seeing as far as not only new construction of these facilities? or where there should be, but where are seniors moving to or moving away from? Jerry Vinci: I can tell you that for a building that's already built, 90 % of their residents move from within a five mile radius of that building. So most of them want to stay where they're at. They don't want to move to a new location. That's actually one of the biggest struggles, I think, for most older adults is to the thought of like having to let go of stuff. You know, not only sell my home, sell my stuff downsized. Now I'm going to miss out on all the places I like to shop, all the things I like to do, you know, so it's a lot for people to think about. So they try to minimize that as much as possible. so, so the majority of people ended up moving in close. the other side of that is like an assisted living or say a memory care situation where maybe you're in North Carolina, but your family's in Michigan and something happens with a family member. You know, you may want to move that family member to be close to you so that you can be a part of their care team, essentially. So you do see that quite a bit where, and it's typically in those higher acuity settings, like a skilled nursing memory care or assisted living where the family will actually move their parent or loved one closer to them so that they can be a part of that and not have to travel as far to see them. Because that's really isolating too. mean, if you take them out of, say like they're living in their home and now all of a sudden they're in a community, If they're not in community that they're from and they're familiar with their surroundings, that's going to be really, really isolating for them. so you have to think about that. I mean, yeah, I I don't think there isn't a whole like my migratory shift of any kind where, know, now we're seeing seniors, all moving to one specific geographic area. mean, there's obviously like the snowbirds who enjoy going down to like Florida or say Georgia or something like that in the colder months. I mean, we even have people here that travel from like North, like Washington state or up in Canada and they'll come down to where we're at in the colder months just cause it's warmer here. But yeah, there's no, there's not like a massive demographic shift or anything that's happening. I think it's just people, people tend to move in close to where, where they live or where their family lives. Loren Wernette: Got it. So if I'm, I'm a developer looking to build something, I want to build assisted living. I'm going to look at where are my, where do I find a high population of 55 to 60 year olds and then build planning on five years? Or if I, if it's going to be more of the full care, where do the 40 year olds live? Because those are going to be the kids of the, of the people moving in. Right. Or is that too simple? Jerry Vinci: Yeah. No, I, yeah. I mean, I think like if you're looking at assisted living or a higher level of care, mean, I would say like, you know, where are the 85 plus people because they're the ones that are going to need it and be ready to move. I think that's part of the challenge too, with senior living. It's like you, it, you know, it sounds like it, okay, I find a place, you know, we tore it, we like it now let's move in, but it's like, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that has to happen before that happens. Usually someone has to sell their home. They might have to get like, you know, a new power of attorney drawn up, you know, there's all sorts of other things moving parts that have to happen before they move into that community. in terms of like where I would look, I mean, I would definitely do my market research. That's typically what we do for a lot of our clients who are looking to build or acquire communities. We'll kind of do like a market assessment to see how many competitors in the area, what's the percentage of the population that's, that's over a specific age. And like you're saying, you know, definitely seeing that there's a strong population of like families there and, and people over, you know, in their forties, forties to fifties, I would say would probably be ideal. That way we know like who the key decision makers are. that, yeah, it could be, and I, know, you obviously don't want to put it in the middle of nowhere. You want it to put it somewhere where there's, where there's an actual hub. because the community is, is not necessarily a closed unit, right? Like they're part of the outside community. So you want to make sure that there's places to take people to and there's hospitals close by and all of those types of things. You want them to be immersed and enmeshed into the life of that community. Loren Wernette: Yeah, you want to make sure there's infrastructure there to support them and everything else you're doing. It's also going to help you as an operator to get them to doctor's appointments and not have staff driving half an hour each direction, right? Jerry Vinci: Yeah, exactly. Loren Wernette: So from an operator standpoint, what are some of the big things that you consistently see with these underperforming facilities that you're like, oh, we changed these three things and we'll go from 55 % occupancy to 100 % occupancy? Jerry Vinci: Yeah. So there's, I'm, have this like thesis in my mind that I always talk to operators about. And it's basically that like execution is the growth lever. So like how well are they executing is going to determine how, how profitable and how full they stay. because it's not, it's not just about getting full. It's also about staying full. Like you were talking earlier about churn. That's probably the biggest, the biggest challenge that this industry has is people either, passing away obviously, which course happens based on who we're talking about. or they leave, they, they're not happy and their family takes them out and moves them somewhere else. And every time that happens now, that entire community is in this space where they're struggling or, know, they're in, they're just trying to fill, fill beds. They're not trying to like enhance the experience for the residents. They're just trying to hit those numbers and then, you know, and hope, hope they stay there. But in terms of ex execution, I think there's like five, five areas. I already mentioned trust as a big one. How are they building trust and how soon are they building trust? Clarity is another one. How clear is their message? Who they serve? What they offer, what's different about them than someone else? Just, I mean, simple things like that you wouldn't believe. Like if you start looking at some of these communities, even if you look in one specific area of say North Carolina and you look at five or six of the communities that are within a 10 mile radius of each other, pretty much all of them will say the same exact thing. You know, there isn't a whole lot that's differentiating them. like making sure you're, you're super crystal clear is another execution lever. I would make sure that that's clear. speed is another one. How fast are they with followups? How fast are they, you know, with, with answering questions, with setting up tours with like moving them through every piece of the process, because nobody, nobody wants to sit and wait. especially if it's like a memory care situation where somebody is in like, it has like a medical crisis, like they need to get in and get themselves situated as quickly as possible. another execution lever would be alignment. So alignment between marketing sales Loren Wernette: Thank Jerry Vinci: and operations. We have some clients even, even today where like the sales department won't talk to the marketing department or blames the marketing department or operations doesn't really understand how marketing works. So they're just, you know, They're just saying, oh, here's our, this is our budget. We're not spending anything else. I don't care if we don't get any leads through the door. It's like, okay, well that's why your occupancy is at 60 % because you're doing that. um, Loren Wernette: Right. Jerry Vinci: yeah, so alignment. And then the last one I think is fragmentation. Um, and fragmentation is just simply the fact that like, there are so many vendors in this industry and because it's a complex business, it's got, you know, healthcare and entertainment and dining and, uh, and real estate kind of all wrapped up together. You've got. multiple vendors handling each piece of that. And so as an operator having to somehow make sense of all of that data in one place where you can look at it and say, okay, now I have the information I need to make smarter decisions that are going to benefit this community. It's very difficult to do that. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges. So if you can, if you can clear up like three of those, if you can improve trust, speed and clarity, I would say like that will make a world of difference, you know, but if you can only like work on one of those and the all the rest are suffering, chances are your occupancy is probably pretty low. Loren Wernette: Interesting, so I'm gonna shift gears here a little bit. So we've talked a lot about, you know this. I want you to talk to me a little bit about from leads to leases your podcast, I know you you talk about this a lot on there. Just give me an idea of you know what kind of conversations are you having on there? And if our you know listeners here are interested in this space, you know what could they expect to learn from your podcast and how are you utilizing your podcast to generate leads for your business? Jerry Vinci: Yeah, no, thanks for asking. Yeah, from Lisa Lisa's, we're on our third season now. And the premise of the show originally was, you know, I'm in the marketing space, I'm in the sales space. I wanted to be able to talk with other leaders in the senior living industry and just hear from them, you know, what challenges were they having in terms of generating leads or getting them through the pipeline to the finish line. You know, questions like that, but then, It started to kind of spiral from that. started to notice that there were deeper, bigger conversations that needed to be had, you know, just, just what we were talking about the housing situation, the staffing challenges that are, that are present. you know, just this major boom, in the, in the baby boomer population, you know, all of those types of topics. so we've kind of expanded beyond just, marketing and sales. And now we just, we. The show is focused on kind of like the trenches, like who's in the trenches of the senior living community, the operators, the marketers, the sales teams, the nurses, and then also vendors who's providing a service to help support those teams within a senior living community. So we kind of, have conversations with thought leaders in all those spaces, innovators. There's a whole lot of like, it's called age tech, know, new tech that's come out that's specific for senior living or for seniors. That's a really interesting space. So I have a lot of conversations with people like that. Just anything I can do to help operators like get a leg up on their competition or maybe just to think about marketing and sales differently than they did before. That's kind of the goal of the show. And then in terms of what it how it's produced results for us, mean, we've had I've had conversations with with multiple, you know, executive directors and owners and operators and presidents and CEOs and And having those conversations, it's just opened up the door of having like deep conversations, building rapport with them. then, you know, naturally in the conversation, it always comes up and we end up talking about their lead gen or their sales process, or, you know, the time it takes for them to close from, from lead to least things like that. And then that'll lead to a deeper discussion. Hey, you know, maybe we should get on a call and explore this and see, see if we can help. So just positioning ourselves always as problem solvers. Loren Wernette: Got it. So if anybody wants to learn more about what you're doing or listen to leads to leases, where can they find you? Jerry Vinci: the easiest place would be our website. That's a CCR growth.com. or they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Jerry Vinci. don't know if there's any other Jerry Vinceys out there, but, you'll find me. Loren Wernette: So before we kind of wrap up here, are there anything that we didn't touch on that you really want the audience to be left with after they listen to this? Obviously, really good conversation. Jerry Vinci: Thanks. No, I think just, you know, from a real estate perspective, you know, just remember that senior living investments are going to succeed or fail based on the operational execution. It's not demographics or real estate that you should be looking at. It's like it's the operational piece of the business. So if anybody out there is interested in learning more about senior living and wants to have a conversation operationally about about what to ask or what to look for and what would make a community a worthwhile investment versus another. I'd be happy to have that conversation. Loren Wernette: Awesome. Well, I will make sure that the contact information you mentioned is in the show notes. And I really enjoyed this conversation. I took a lot away from it because like I said, it's a space that I'm aware of, but don't know a ton about. And thank you for your time today on the show. Jerry Vinci: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Loren Wernette: Yeah, so and to everybody else. Thanks again and we will talk to you next week.