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Senior Housing's 500,000-Unit Shortfall w/ Jerry Vinci · Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew

• 0:00
  This year marks the first time baby boomers start turning 80.
• 0:04
  The exact age most people actually move into senior living,
• 0:08
  and we're about to be 500,000 units short of what this market needs
• 0:14
  by 2030. In this episode, you'll learn how why senior housing is one
• 0:19
  of the most complex asset classes to invest in.
• 0:23
  The red flags that show an operator can't sustain occupancy is
• 0:28
  And why responding to a lead in under five minutes makes you twenty
• 0:33
  one times more likely to convert it.
• 0:35
  Jerry Vinci has spent 20 years in senior living sales,
• 0:39
  marketing, and operations and now helps investors independently verify what's really
• 0:45
  happening inside those communities before they buy.
• 0:48
  If you want help building systems for your own investing business,
• 0:52
  check out RealDealCrew.com. Let's get started.
• 1:00
  Jerry Vinci joins me here today,
• 1:02
  and you can learn what he's up to by heading over to I'm going to give
• 1:06
  you two websites. One is NordenAdvisory.com and the other
• 1:11
  one is CCRgrowth.com. I'm going have both of those as clickable links
• 1:15
  in the show notes. I really appreciate you joining us here today,
• 1:20
  Jerry. We're going to be tackling a topic that I frankly think a lot
• 1:24
  of us probably ignore but we have what you've kind of
• 1:29
  Garnered as the silver tsunami coming at us here pretty soon,
• 1:33
  if we haven't like started to seeing the crest of that already.
• 1:37
  So we're gonna be talking about senior housing and everything in between,
• 1:40
  so appreciate your time here today.
• 1:42
  Hey, thanks for having me on, Jack.
• 1:43
  I really appreciate it.
• 1:44
  So Jerry, you've spent twenty years in senior living sales and marketing.
• 1:48
  What got you into this industry in the first place?
• 1:51
  I would say like a lot of people in this space,
• 1:54
  it was definitely through family experience.
• 1:57
  All four of my grandparents went through some type of senior care,
• 2:01
  whether it was independent living,
• 2:03
  assisted living, even memory care.
• 2:05
  my grandmother had Alzheimer's,
• 2:07
  so we had to go through the whole,
• 2:09
  you know, nursing home experience,
• 2:11
  which was pretty horrible. but one of the things that I noticed
• 2:14
  and was just watching the chaos that happened with my family,
• 2:18
  right?
• 2:19
  There's like an exigent circumstance like that,
• 2:21
  and something that no one had really planned for or thought about ahead of time.
• 2:25
  Now all of sudden you got to make some moves and you have to do it pretty quickly.
• 2:29
  now this was like this was probably about 20 years ago.
• 2:32
  So it's been a while, and and things have obviously improved in terms
• 2:35
  of like consumer resources, how we shop,
• 2:38
  how we buy, how we research, all those things have improved.
• 2:41
  But but overall I saw my family make some missteps and and put
• 2:46
  find places for my loved ones that were not necessarily the best.
• 2:49
  And it just kind of that kind of stuck with me,
• 2:51
  right? And as I built up my experience in like sales,
• 2:55
  marketing and and operations side of senior living,
• 2:58
  I really, really got a sense for what a well-run community looks like and what
• 3:03
  a not so well-run community looks like.
• 3:05
  And and it's kind of just fueled the passion that I've had in the space
• 3:09
  of of helping families navigate this this decision.
• 3:11
  And then
• 3:12
  not just families, but helping communities optimize their operations
• 3:17
  to better serve those families and now also helping investors make more sound,
• 3:23
  educated, informed decisions on what a good asset in this space looks like.
• 3:28
  Well,
• 3:28
  so for listeners who are not familiar with the senior living space,
• 3:32
  can you quickly paint a picture of what the market looks like here today?
• 3:36
  It's yeah, it's probably one of the most complex asset classes out there
• 3:40
  in terms of an investment something something you know that capital might might
• 3:45
  be looking at. And the reason for that I think is that a lot of
• 3:49
  a lot of institutional investors they're they're typically like looking
• 3:53
  at multifamily and they're they're assuming that the multifamily model exists
• 3:57
  and is is pretty similar across the board with senior housing,
• 4:01
  but it's
• 4:01
  very, very different with with multifamily,
• 4:04
  you know, the the lease and the building itself is the asset.
• 4:08
  And with senior living, it the building is one piece of it,
• 4:12
  but it's actually the operating business inside of the real estate asset that
• 4:16
  is the business that you're buying.
• 4:18
  So unless you have some working knowledge of how a community operates,
• 4:22
  it can be a very complex asset class very quickly.
• 4:26
  You know, you've got multiple businesses running
• 4:28
  Inside you've got hospitality,
• 4:29
  health care, entertainment, dining,
• 4:32
  transportation, just the name of you on top of you know the the
• 4:36
  the actual like residential piece of it.
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  So it just gets really complex very quickly.
• 4:41
  And then you also have different levels of care,
• 4:44
  sometimes multiple levels of care in one building.
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  but even if you just add one level of care,
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  that in and of itself will also add to the complexity of everything that's happening
• 4:52
  inside the building. And then you add to that that you're
• 4:55
  you're serving you know, a group of people who are her older,
• 4:59
  their their health is not as as as great as as some of the,
• 5:03
  you know, the their younger counterparts.
• 5:05
  So there's going to be complications that come up.
• 5:08
  so really understanding all of that in a in a real estate and an investing space
• 5:13
  can be a real challenge.
• 5:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:16
  Well you've talked about the silver s tsunami coming by twenty thirty.
• 5:20
  What does that actually mean for investors and what is the scale
• 5:24
  of the opportunity that we're facing there?
• 5:26
  Yeah, you know, we hear this term,
• 5:28
  the silver tsunami. We've been hearing that for probably the last 10 or 15 years,
• 5:32
  and everybody's keep saying that it's coming,
• 5:34
  it's coming, just just wait. and rather than us talking about it in
• 5:38
  in you know future terms, it's finally here.
• 5:40
  Twenty twenty-six is the first year where the baby boomer generation starts
• 5:46
  to turn 80 years old. And that's kind of the magic number in senior living,
• 5:49
  and that's actually another
• 5:51
  kind of misnomer is you hear 65,
• 5:53
  right? All the time. People talk about 65 and senior living.
• 5:56
  Most the majority of people moving into senior living are 80 to 85 years old.
• 6:00
  So we're really on the cusp of this demographic wave just starting to hit this year.
• 6:07
  You know, by by 2034,
• 6:11
  we'll have more adults over the age of 65 than we'll have children in
• 6:15
  in America for the first time ever in the history of America.
• 6:19
  and then I think by twenty fifty,
• 6:20
  the number of adults over the age of eighty is supposed to triple.
• 6:23
  So this isn't like this isn't just a five-year or a 10-year cycle.
• 6:28
  This is the next couple of decades that we're looking at this influx
• 6:32
  in in older adults. And and obviously it's not just that we have more older adults
• 6:37
  in the market, it's that people are living longer.
• 6:39
  So every year, the likelihood that we're gonna have more and more seniors looking
• 6:45
  for housing beyond
• 6:47
  the age of eighty just continues to increase.
• 6:50
  Mm-hmm. Yeah, you kind of brought up a another s thing that we're gonna
• 6:55
  be struggling with ec economically then if we have more people
• 6:59
  in these senior living centers than taxpayers to support it.
• 7:03
  That's a yeah, that's a good point for sure.
• 7:06
  I mean, the challenge, it's not just that we have this demographic wave,
• 7:10
  we also have a supply gap too on top of it.
• 7:13
  So not only do you have demand rising,
• 7:15
  but you have supply that's actually at its lowest level since twenty twelve,
• 7:18
  I think. And we had, for example,
• 7:20
  in twenty twenty five, I think there was around nineteen thousand
• 7:24
  and change units that were under construction.
• 7:26
  And I know that between now and twenty thirty we need to average about tw
• 7:31
  56,000 units a year in order for us to hit the numbers that we need
• 7:36
  to have enough housing. So we're we're gonna be about 500,000 units short by 2030.
• 7:41
  And then over the the next decade,
• 7:43
  2030 to 2040, it's something like a hundred to a hundred
• 7:47
  and twenty-five thousand units every year need to be built in order for
• 7:49
  us to keep with demand. So we're like three to four times below where we should be.
• 7:54
  Obviously, there's a lot of reasons why that could be from you know cost
• 7:59
  of construction to
• 8:00
  to regulatory issues, to to staffing problems.
• 8:04
  you know, so like even if a community's slated to begin construction today,
• 8:08
  you're probably looking at a a twenty eight,
• 8:10
  twenty twenty eight to twenty twenty nine before it's even even ready
• 8:14
  to start leasing up.
• 8:15
  Mm-hmm. Well, mm most of the people listening to this are obviously investors.
• 8:20
  Could you talk a little bit about the process there on your Norden advisory side
• 8:25
  on how you help investors evaluate these opportunities and and maybe helping them
• 8:31
  position things f so that it becomes,
• 8:34
  you know, taking advantage of this demand?
• 8:37
  Yeah, sure. yeah, so Norton Norton was kind of it was an afterthought for me,
• 8:42
  honestly. I I've been running this marketing and growth demand generation agency
• 8:46
  for the last two decades. And but s we started to see this problem
• 8:51
  on the investor side that we had been seeing on the operator side of senior housing.
• 8:56
  And so people were essentially buying senior housing,
• 8:58
  you know, and just looking at the financial due diligence,
• 9:01
  essentially, which
• 9:03
  Granted, like it's all it's all very well established.
• 9:05
  You know, you cap rates, NOI, rent roll,
• 9:08
  all of those things been around for a long time.
• 9:11
  Everyone trusts those numbers.
• 9:12
  But there was no independent way to answer the one specific question that
• 9:18
  I think really defines this market,
• 9:20
  which is you know, it's answering the question that's it's it's coming from well,
• 9:26
  it's answering a question that was coming from the seller,
• 9:28
  essentially. So the operator was the one.
• 9:30
  handing this information to the investment committee.
• 9:32
  And was can can this operator sustain occupancy where it's at,
• 9:36
  increase occupancy or increase occupancy in this specific market.
• 9:40
  So can they increase or maintain occupancy in this specific market?
• 9:44
  And none of those none of those financials will tell you that information at all.
• 9:48
  So you're essentially buying an asset based on information that the seller
• 9:53
  is giving you and trusting that it's it's true and accurate.
• 9:57
  But
• 9:58
  You know, obviously they're going to skew that information towards their performance
• 10:01
  because they want to look good because they're the one being evaluated.
• 10:04
  So so Norden was developed as a as a completely independent read where we
• 10:09
  go in and we have several different diagnostics that we can we can look
• 10:12
  at depending on where where the deal is in the lifecycle,
• 10:15
  right? So if it's like a pre-acquisition deal,
• 10:17
  we can come in and we can look at those numbers and say,
• 10:20
  hey, yes, this operator is performing well in the market.
• 10:22
  you know, they're stacking up against their competitors.
• 10:25
  Their occupancy has been steady over the last 12 to 18 months.
• 10:28
  Yeah, this is this is a good investment,
• 10:30
  versus, you know, somewhere where the occupancy might look good today,
• 10:34
  but we end up uncovering some things that six months from now,
• 10:37
  it's going to be a problem. So,
• 10:39
  you know, through this diagnostic,
• 10:41
  we're able to help either restructure the deal,
• 10:44
  reprice the deal, or maybe somebody just decides to walk away because they don't
• 10:49
  like what this information is telling them.
• 10:51
  But essentially, if it's a a deal that's in pre-acquisition,
• 10:54
  If there's maybe an operator transition that's happening,
• 10:57
  which happens a lot in senior housing,
• 10:59
  or maybe they want to see like the performance of the community,
• 11:02
  how how it's been performing, or if they're looking to get out,
• 11:05
  if they want to do an exit diagnostic,
• 11:07
  we can do that as well. So we we can cover any stage of the deal and give them
• 11:11
  a really solid read on what's actually happening in that community.
• 11:14
  So you say most of these communities are ill prepared for what is coming
• 11:19
  and you've kind of given us a sample of like a of a red flag or two.
• 11:24
  Are there anything else that you've been seeing as a consistent red flags
• 11:28
  as you've been evaluating these these opportunities?
• 11:32
  Yeah, I'm one of them probably would be the intake system that that
• 11:35
  the operator has or doesn't have.
• 11:38
  I guess more likely doesn't have.
• 11:40
  there's like there's four parts to an intake system,
• 11:42
  and this isn't specific to senior living,
• 11:44
  but just in general. A successful intake system for any business is gonna have four
• 11:49
  parts. So where the lead comes in,
• 11:51
  how it gets qualified, how it gets handed off from marketing to sales,
• 11:56
  and then how it gets followed up on.
• 11:58
  And a lot of operators in this space,
• 12:00
  they spend pr most, if not all,
• 12:03
  of their time on lead generation and nothing else.
• 12:05
  Most of them don't worry or are aren't thinking about,
• 12:09
  you know, how are they going to qualify a good lead from a not great lead?
• 12:13
  how is it being handed off, you know,
• 12:15
  and then what does that follow up system look like?
• 12:16
  So that's probably one of the biggest challenges that that we see.
• 12:20
  that just creates a a real disconnect from
• 12:24
  a a really solid operating community and one that's struggling.
• 12:28
  And, you know, a lot of times I hear too,
• 12:30
  okay, well, we have this demographic wave coming.
• 12:34
  Can't we just, you know, sit back and ride the tailwinds and just assume that
• 12:38
  if we're sitting at 85% occupancy now,
• 12:40
  we're not going to have a problem in in a couple years.
• 12:44
  that's just not the case though,
• 12:45
  because a well-run community is a well-run community and a not well-run community
• 12:49
  is not run well. Like there's no
• 12:52
  There's no amount of of demand that's gonna change that.
• 12:55
  And no one is gonna put themselves or their loved one into a community that they
• 12:59
  don't feel is gonna do their, you know,
• 13:02
  level best to take care of mom or dad.
• 13:05
  Mm-hmm. You've mentioned you've you've stated the world word community
• 13:09
  a couple of times, and unfortunately we've had the experience of dealing with some
• 13:13
  of these outfits as well. and just evaluating and looking out,
• 13:18
  you know, trying to find a place for your loved one,
• 13:21
  boy, you see all walks of operations available.
• 13:26
  And this is a prime example of you really,
• 13:30
  really get what you pay for.
• 13:32
  when it comes to this type of stuff and the type of care I mean in some places
• 13:36
  I hate to say it but it was like death's waiting room in one instance
• 13:41
  and then kind of independent living in another like it it's it's a kind
• 13:46
  of a wide crazy thing. Like is that part of your evaluation scenario when you're
• 13:52
  looking into these? Like the the experience for the for the residents?
• 13:58
  the experience for the resident would definitely show up in different ways.
• 14:02
  We wouldn't necessarily go in and say like mystery shop or something like that.
• 14:05
  But what we would do would be look at the one thing we tried to do with Norden
• 14:09
  was have as many signals available to us as possible that didn't require
• 14:15
  us to have to go into the community and lift the hood to find them.
• 14:19
  Because as you know, like if we're gonna rely on an operator to give us data,
• 14:23
  like
• 14:24
  private data, it it's gonna be very difficult for for us to get that.
• 14:27
  So we've really focused on on aspects of the market that are visible
• 14:33
  to to just about anybody who knows what they're looking for.
• 14:35
  so the way that we would evaluate that essentially is if we look
• 14:38
  at like the reputation trend, for example.
• 14:40
  So if we look at the last 12 to 18 months of of reviews that have come in,
• 14:44
  have do they have a good cadence on their reviews?
• 14:47
  Are they positive? What's the sentiment of those reviews?
• 14:50
  Are there certain words or
• 14:51
  Or phrases that keep coming up.
• 14:53
  Do they keep mentioning staff,
• 14:54
  food, entertainment? you know,
• 14:57
  or is it something negative? You know,
• 14:58
  and like and when we can pick up those things,
• 15:00
  we can start to see we can start to pick up on those signals.
• 15:03
  so not necessarily getting a sense for how what the experience is like inside
• 15:09
  the community itself. but we can get an outside external read on that
• 15:13
  and get enough information to really get a sense for what that might look like
• 15:16
  or feel like. But to your point,
• 15:18
  I mean there's
• 15:19
  There's multiple different types of communities.
• 15:21
  There's everything like you were saying from independent living all
• 15:24
  the way to skilled nursing, which is like the nursing homes of today,
• 15:27
  but much, much better run than than in the past.
• 15:30
  but those levels of care will definitely change the the nature of like what
• 15:34
  an experience inside one of those communities might look like.
• 15:38
  Just to remind everybody, we're talking to Jerry Vincey.
• 15:40
  You can learn more at NordenAdvisory.com.
• 15:44
  I'm going to have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
• 15:46
  And then if you're interested in the marketing aspect of this,
• 15:50
  it's ccrgrowth.com. That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes.
• 15:54
  And if you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
• 15:58
  do us a favor, share this with one of your friends.
• 16:00
  And if you're watching us on YouTube,
• 16:02
  give us a like and subscribe.
• 16:04
  So
• 16:05
  Jerry, y let's spend a little time on the marketing aspect because I I I spend
• 16:09
  a lot of time optimizing for local SEO for for some of my clients.
• 16:15
  And when you were talking about the profile that you were just building
• 16:19
  out there and you're you're you were essentially describing what
• 16:23
  a good Google business profile would look like.
• 16:25
  You know, it was pr you know, those type of details,
• 16:29
  especially as of late, you know,
• 16:31
  with AI
• 16:31
  And everything, it's all of this,
• 16:33
  it's almost the context of these reviews now as it is anything else.
• 16:37
  And it it's kind of sounds like you're ahead of the curb when it ki comes
• 16:42
  to your algorithm to understand the legitimacy of of this opportunity.
• 16:48
  What we've decided on as a company,
• 16:51
  I guess our our philosophy for a long time has been you know,
• 16:54
  we don't believe one channel is gonna be the the make or break option
• 16:59
  for any any one particular community or business in general.
• 17:02
  it's the holistic approach to all all of these channels working together.
• 17:06
  And it's to be as visible as possible in as many places as possible,
• 17:11
  but also
• 17:12
  For a very specific market, like you're saying,
• 17:14
  like senior living is extremely hyperlocal.
• 17:17
  over ninety percent of residents typically move in from a five to ten mile radius
• 17:21
  of the community itself that they're looking at.
• 17:23
  So most people don't wanna move,
• 17:25
  don't wanna move far from home.
• 17:27
  They wanna s you know, still be able to go to all the stores and
• 17:30
  the restaurants and see their friends and all of those types of situations.
• 17:34
  So unless they're going to like memory care or something where maybe their family's
• 17:38
  moving them to be closer to to
• 17:40
  to them so that they can be a part of that process.
• 17:42
  typically they're moving in pretty close to home.
• 17:45
  So yeah, like Google My Business is going to be a big factor in terms of
• 17:49
  how you get visibility, organic search,
• 17:52
  AI search, pretty much anything that relies on content is going to be very,
• 17:57
  very powerful because most people searching senior living,
• 18:00
  they're they are searching. Like they need answers,
• 18:03
  they have questions, they don't know where to start.
• 18:05
  So anytime you can kind of
• 18:08
  begin that process with them of like holding their hand,
• 18:11
  giving them the information they need and and helping them gently along
• 18:15
  in the process. It's not like buying a car or even a house,
• 18:18
  you know, where you just find one online.
• 18:21
  You're like, that looks nice. Let's,
• 18:22
  you know, we'll get that one. There's it's the typical sales timeline
• 18:26
  for say assisted living is about 180 days.
• 18:29
  So it's not, it's not often a quick decision.
• 18:32
  It's something that families will really take their time to mull over.
• 18:35
  So is that kind of a gap that you you fill with your marketing aspect?
• 18:39
  Is is f fleshing out the website and and other things so that it
• 18:44
  it becomes like that a central hub or a resource for the community?
• 18:48
  Yeah, it kind of has to be because there's so many different ways
• 18:51
  for people to consume content and access content that you have to have like
• 18:55
  one central repository for all of your information about your community.
• 18:59
  So making the website your hub and then and then being able to link out
• 19:02
  to all these other platforms from there is great.
• 19:04
  Make you know, varying up the content that you have on the platform.
• 19:08
  So if somebody sees your Facebook page versus say your Google My Business listing
• 19:12
  or whatever, like there's not going to be the same thing on every single platform.
• 19:16
  that way, you know, they're they're getting a piece of it.
• 19:18
  Like Facebook, for example, could be like the window into your community where
• 19:22
  people get to kind of see behind the curtain of what day-to-day life looks like.
• 19:26
  And then the website would have more of like the virtual tours
• 19:28
  and the pricing information and the FAQs and things like that.
• 19:31
  So just making it a a well-rounded experience overall,
• 19:35
  I think, is is probably probably the best option that you can do.
• 19:38
  sorry, what was your original question again?
• 19:41
  Let me go back and
• 19:42
  No, it was just kind of interesting to see
• 19:43
  Finish that answer.
• 19:44
  how you you flesh out some of this stuff because it I would imagine,
• 19:47
  you know, that this is one of those things that you're kind of targeting
• 19:51
  or you're marketing to the kids the you know,
• 19:54
  that are are trying to make these hard decisions.
• 19:57
  So you need to be able to not only provide the re resources but reassure them that
• 20:02
  they're gonna make the right decision.
• 20:04
  That's a great point. Yeah. I mean,
• 20:05
  trust is probably the the biggest thing that you're trying to establish
• 20:08
  as quickly in the process as possible.
• 20:10
  And I think that's why I I talk about,
• 20:11
  you know, the the nature of the content that you're putting out all the time.
• 20:14
  And there's like there's always this push for for AI now.
• 20:18
  And everybody wants to generate content with AI.
• 20:21
  And and I'm not I'm not an anti AI person at all.
• 20:24
  I mean, we use it in in many of the things that we do from our podcast to
• 20:28
  to some of the the services that we've built for some of our clients.
• 20:31
  But it's it's always like garbage in,
• 20:34
  garbage out, right? Like so if I'm gonna rely on con on AI to produce content,
• 20:39
  it's not gonna be very good. But if I rely on AI to to supplement some
• 20:44
  of the heavy lifting that I'm doing,
• 20:46
  maybe in in the data space or in repetitive tasks and things like that,
• 20:50
  it frees me up to focus more on you know where my human value actually will will
• 20:55
  impact the process greater, you know,
• 20:57
  even even inside of a senior living community.
• 21:00
  You know, you don't necessarily see AI having conversations with with the families,
• 21:05
  in total, right? Like you definitely shouldn't.
• 21:08
  And if you do, that's a red flag.
• 21:10
  But most of the time it's there to supplement,
• 21:12
  it's there to move the conversation along,
• 21:14
  you know, but there's always gonna be that human to human salesperson who's gonna
• 21:18
  interact and and navigate that complex situation with that family.
• 21:22
  You mentioned that some of these outfits would you say have kind
• 21:26
  of outdated marketing strategies,
• 21:28
  maybe wrong targets, wrong channels.
• 21:31
  How much does a community marketing effective effectiveness actually show
• 21:36
  up in the financials?
• 21:38
  I mean that's like an operations question,
• 21:40
  right? So that that is probably the the number one thing that's driving
• 21:43
  the results inside of the community.
• 21:45
  I mean, there's obviously culture culture is a big piece of that,
• 21:48
  culture from the top down, but how how they go about how they're gonna go about
• 21:54
  operating that that business from the inside out is going to it's gonna
• 21:58
  say a lot about how they generate leads,
• 22:00
  how how their team handles those leads once they come in.
• 22:05
  you know, you even look at something as simple as like speed to lead,
• 22:08
  right? Like how long it takes somebody to respond when a when a lead comes
• 22:12
  in and and there's been hundreds and hundreds of of data points on this that'll
• 22:17
  say something like if
• 22:18
  If you respond to an inbound inquiry in five minutes or less,
• 22:21
  it's there's a 21 times increase in the conversion percentage.
• 22:26
  Not not 21% better, but 21 times better likelihood that you're gonna convert that.
• 22:32
  So inside even even knowing that inside of senior living,
• 22:36
  sometimes it can still take twenty-four hours or longer for a salesperson
• 22:39
  to to respond. Now, if you think about like who's reaching out
• 22:44
  and when they're reaching out,
• 22:45
  though, I mean
• 22:46
  Sometimes it could be like 2 a.m.
• 22:47
  on a Sunday. You know, there has been like a hospital discharge and
• 22:50
  now a daughter's trying to call to figure out something,
• 22:54
  you know, next next steps for her mom because she's not capable of taking care
• 22:58
  of her at home. so it's a very stressful situation.
• 23:01
  And and of course, like, you know,
• 23:02
  the likelihood that community is gonna have somebody on staff who can talk
• 23:05
  to them at two AM is pretty low.
• 23:07
  But how quickly is that human gonna get back to them?
• 23:10
  So it's not speed to lead anymore.
• 23:12
  Now it's like speed to human. How fast can
• 23:15
  Can I get in touch with an actual human who can help me navigate the situation?
• 23:20
  So that that's like operationally speaking,
• 23:22
  I mean, if if you can look at those types of things and dial those in,
• 23:26
  that's when like occupancy becomes predictable because people people know what
• 23:32
  to expect from this community.
• 23:33
  It's it's usually a personnel issue that creates problems in a community,
• 23:37
  whether it's the care staff isn't doing their job,
• 23:40
  the dining staff isn't doing their job.
• 23:42
  an executive director isn't following through and and taking care
• 23:45
  of issues that come up and and addressing them in the moment and letting stuff kind
• 23:49
  of fester. you see all those types of things and then it just creates
• 23:53
  it creates chaos down the line and eventually families will start to leave
• 23:57
  if they start to see that that the operation isn't sound.
• 24:01
  Mm-hmm. Well, y you know, you brought up a couple things there that
• 24:06
  I think is really important too.
• 24:07
  It's it's that initial touch point and how quickly you're responding and
• 24:12
  and and the open communication.
• 24:14
  That's it seems like that's where things really start to fall apart.
• 24:17
  Like it if you can't respond to somebody relatively quickly,
• 24:23
  I mean whether you realize it or not,
• 24:26
  that's a kind of a telltale sign of how well the operation is actually running.
• 24:30
  And that's something small too.
• 24:32
  It's not something you would think would make that big of a difference,
• 24:34
  but it really does. And that's and you have to think about like from
• 24:37
  the family perspective too. They're not just reaching out to one person,
• 24:41
  one community. They're reaching out to four or five,
• 24:44
  six sometimes, you know, and sometimes they're calling just to
• 24:47
  ask questions and other times they're looking to maybe schedule a tour.
• 24:50
  So it can it can get really competitive very quickly.
• 24:54
  And if you're not fast to respond,
• 24:56
  you know, that person's gonna go elsewhere.
• 24:58
  What do you think? A are is there some of the population in the senior housing that
• 25:03
  that are operators that think that they don't have to put their pet foot best foot
• 25:08
  forward because of there's such a lack of product that they're gonna just fill beds
• 25:14
  anyway, it doesn't matter?
• 25:16
  Yeah, that's exactly I think part of the problem right now.
• 25:19
  I think that there's a lot of operators that just they're complacent
• 25:23
  or they just feel like you know,
• 25:25
  this the demographics of this space are just gonna naturally fill
• 25:29
  the building and they're not gonna have to worry about.
• 25:31
  But at the end of the day, it's like this is it's especially with the baby boomers,
• 25:36
  this is all about experience more so than it is about amenities,
• 25:40
  right? So it used to be
• 25:42
  You know, we have the best dining program,
• 25:44
  we have the best entertainment program,
• 25:46
  we have, you know, a pool and a workout facility and a salon
• 25:50
  and all every community's got that now.
• 25:52
  It's you know, they're they all competed on amenities for so long that
• 25:56
  now they've basically homogenized where everybody has the same thing.
• 25:59
  So now it's about the experience,
• 26:02
  it's about the staff, it's about how do they make me feel,
• 26:04
  you know, am I able to move into this community and actually live better than
• 26:08
  I did at home? Because
• 26:10
  The other thing we didn't talk about was the fact that less than
• 26:12
  10% of the addressable market will ever move into senior housing.
• 26:16
  So you've got the majority of the market that doesn't want what you're selling.
• 26:20
  So, you know, there's obviously a narrative issue there.
• 26:24
  Something needs to change in the way we're talking about it or the
• 26:26
  way we understand it, but also in you know,
• 26:29
  in just getting people's minds to shift from I want to stay in this giant house,
• 26:34
  even if I'm all by myself, that I've
• 26:36
  been living in for the last 40 years versus,
• 26:39
  you know, I want to go live communally with the with my peers.
• 26:42
  So that's a a big change.
• 26:45
  Yeah, s especially with that generation,
• 26:47
  right? everybody we we all know that the the level of independence is is paramount.
• 26:54
  So to be moved into something like this is is probably just against everything that
• 27:01
  they would grow up believing.
• 27:03
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:05
  Well,
• 27:05
  I this is just fascinating, Jerry.
• 27:07
  We could be spending an entire episode just talking about a variety of of things,
• 27:13
  including I would I'm gonna I'm gonna before we move into the rapid fire
• 27:18
  and close out this episode, I do have one question for you.
• 27:21
  If you were in the situation of moving into an a retirement community,
• 27:27
  what are some of the things that you personally would be looking for?
• 27:30
  To make sure it was a good fit.
• 27:32
  I think for me it's the people,
• 27:33
  first and foremost, because this isn't just it's not like buying a house where
• 27:38
  you can just close the door and seal yourself off from the rest of the world.
• 27:42
  so like everything that's in the house is what really matters and everything else
• 27:46
  is just kind of like icing on the cake.
• 27:47
  Here, everything that happens outside of your door is what what really matters
• 27:51
  and what makes that experience what it is.
• 27:53
  So making sure that
• 27:55
  It's in alignment with the things that you like.
• 27:57
  There's there are communities today that will will specialize in in everything.
• 28:01
  So if you're you know, if you're an artist or a musician or if if you're
• 28:06
  a a sports enthusiast or whatever it is,
• 28:09
  there is a community out there that is catering specifically to that audience.
• 28:13
  And so I would say, you know, go out and try to find a group of
• 28:18
  of like minded people because
• 28:20
  You know, whoever's living there now is gonna attract more like attracts like.
• 28:23
  So whoever's living there now is gonna attract more people of a similar background.
• 28:27
  So if that's a group that you resonate with,
• 28:29
  I would say, you know, I would look towards that.
• 28:31
  That would be my my advice.
• 28:35
  Yeah, that's actually fascinating.
• 28:36
  I I didn't realize and it makes a lot of sense,
• 28:39
  especially in some of the bigger markets,
• 28:41
  I I that they would be catering down to a niche like that if you were
• 28:47
  if you had particular interests.
• 28:49
  It almost sounds like a big Airbnb
• 28:49
  Yeah, I mean ev
• 28:50
  or something.
• 28:52
  Yeah.
• 28:53
  I I was it's like a cruise ship on land,
• 28:55
  right? Like so every everything you could possibly want or need,
• 28:58
  there's gonna be some some community out there that's got what you're looking for.
• 29:03
  Yeah, that's that's interesting.
• 29:04
  I I can I can also see where most people would do what you suggest or or
• 29:09
  say is that they they stay within their community.
• 29:12
  That's what the people they know,
• 29:14
  their friends and family are all right there.
• 29:16
  So to be outside of their comfort zone any further is is kind of hard to swallow.
• 29:23
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:25
  Well, Jerry, is there anything else we should have hit on before we jump into
• 29:28
  the rapid fire?
• 29:30
  I don't think so. I think I think we can jump into that.
• 29:34
  Okay, just to remind everybody again,
• 29:36
  if you're looking at at this as an investment class,
• 29:40
  it's definitely worth hitting up Jerry and his team to help you assess this.
• 29:45
  So head over to Nordenadvisory.com.
• 29:48
  That's gonna be a clickable link in the show notes.
• 29:50
  If you need some help with the marketing aspect,
• 29:52
  head over to C Crgrowth dot com.
• 29:55
  But Jerry we'll jump into the rap and fire and close out this episode.
• 29:59
  What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
• 30:02
  I think probably that that more leads will fix the problem.
• 30:07
  I think like no there's no operation at scale that that has
• 30:11
  a lead generation problem. I think they have a conversion problem.
• 30:14
  a conversion problem, a follow-up problem,
• 30:16
  and a qualification problem. So the easiest thing to do is probably spend more
• 30:20
  on top of funnel. and well, sorry,
• 30:24
  I want to say
• 30:25
  The easiest thing to do is what they're doing,
• 30:27
  which is to spend more getting more leads,
• 30:29
  but not actually addressing the the problem underneath.
• 30:32
  So I think in senior housing, that's probably the biggest thing is the operators,
• 30:36
  they dump more. if there's a problem,
• 30:38
  they just dump more into ads and less into into what's actually happening once those
• 30:43
  leads come in.
• 30:44
  Yeah, I I work with a lot of investors on this actual aspect,
• 30:48
  Jerry, is is the and I'm my specialty is not the senior housing by any stretch,
• 30:54
  but dialing in those operations because you're you're absolutely right.
• 30:59
  You can actually see a significant lift by redirecting some of that attention
• 31:05
  for that lead to speed and that that initial outreach.
• 31:08
  it's typically not a lead problem.
• 31:11
  It's it's an operations issue.
• 31:14
  Yeah, surprising.
• 31:17
  If you could go back in time and give your younger self a single piece of advice,
• 31:20
  what would it be?
• 31:21
  I think understanding the concept that we've now established in terms of
• 31:26
  how we how we handle the marketing and sales problem.
• 31:29
  I think a lot of organizations,
• 31:31
  they're still pointing fingers at each other.
• 31:33
  The leads are terrible, or the sales team isn't doing their job with
• 31:37
  the leads that we're getting. And I think if we can if we can just look
• 31:40
  at that entire system as the acquis acquisitions team and then establish you know,
• 31:46
  like
• 31:47
  one shared dashboard, for example,
• 31:49
  that marketing sales and operations,
• 31:51
  they all look at at the same time every day.
• 31:54
  You know, there's there are so many problems that happen because
• 31:59
  the marketing director is reporting to the CEO,
• 32:01
  the salesperson's reporting to the CEO.
• 32:03
  Like nobody's owning that whole entire pipeline.
• 32:06
  So I think like ownership would probably be the one thing if I could
• 32:10
  go back in time. Like make
• 32:12
  Every single organization I've ever worked with to make sure that there
• 32:14
  was one person who took ownership over that entire process and saw
• 32:19
  it from from start to finish, they would make a lifetime of difference
• 32:22
  in every organization.
• 32:23
  Do you have a book recommendation or what are you reading right now?
• 32:27
  yeah, I'm actually reading the longevity economy right now,
• 32:30
  which is it's an older, it's I think it came out around twenty sixteen,
• 32:36
  twenty seventeen, and it's by Joseph Coughlin.
• 32:39
  really, really well developed book,
• 32:42
  all about s the senior. It's not just about senior living,
• 32:46
  it's about it's it's just about the rise in the in the demographic wave that's
• 32:50
  coming with the silver tsunami.
• 32:52
  but he's got some great insights in there.
• 32:54
  I definitely would recommend check that out.
• 32:57
  And finally, what single tool or process have you implemented that
• 33:00
  has had the biggest time saving impact?
• 33:02
  I hate to even say it, but eight AI for sure.
• 33:05
  For for content repurposing, I think being able to take one piece of content
• 33:09
  and and create multiple other pieces of content across multiple platforms with it.
• 33:14
  You know, for example, our podcast,
• 33:16
  we can take one episode and spin off an entire clip library and
• 33:20
  and have that running on five or six different channels.
• 33:23
  so you know, one piece of content just gets leveraged over and over and over again.
• 33:27
  So that that's been a huge
• 33:29
  return on time where we used to have to create those individually.
• 33:33
  Well, Jerry, I really appreciate you giving us the time here today.
• 33:36
  Again, it is Norton Advisory dot com and C CR Growth dot com.
• 33:41
  Both of those are gonna be clickable links in the show notes,
• 33:44
  but hope you'll consider coming back again sometime.
• 33:46
  It was great to meet you.
• 33:47
  Yeah, you too, Jack. Thanks for having me.