KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Helping Seniors Downsize: A Guide for Real Estate Agents

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Summary:This episode features an interview with Marty Stevens-Heebner, founder of Senior Move Manager. The discussion centers on the emotional and logistical challenges of downsizing for seniors and how real estate agents can effectively assist them. Marty shares insights on building trust, communicating with empathy, and offering resources beyond the transaction. The episode is rich with actionable advice for agents looking to serve the senior demographic and build a strong referral-based business.

This is horrible. Why doesn't somebody do this for a living? Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Thank you. It's, you know, one of the things that's amazing about working with older adults is that you go home at the end of the day, even if they've been difficult and it's been really hard work, you go home and know that you ease somebody's burden big time. It's not like picking fidget spinners. You really transform their lives. So it's such an honor and just such a pleasure. And so I just thought people have homes filled with stuff. treasures, airlooms, and then everything else that isn't so great.

And often older adults have lived in their homes for anywhere from 20 to 40, or in one case, 89 years. Wow. Yeah. And there's so much sentimental attachment to things. I mean, moving stinks at any age. You can be 22 with a backpack and it's still hard to move. I don't call it relocation.

I call it dislocation because you're going to feel kind of out of joint until you've been there about a month or so and know the neighborhood. It's even harder, obviously, for older adults, especially if they have any little inkling of cognitive impairment, dementia, it just can be exacerbated unless it's done with a lot of compassion and know-how. And that's what we bring to the work that we do, whether it's sorting and downsizing floor planning, getting a, making sure everything is packed and supervising move day, unpacking, and setting up to home, especially if it's an older, like senior living community, assisted living, or something like that, so that it feels like a

reflection of the home they've left behind. So it feels familiar. And then afterwards, we deal with all the remaining items that remain in the house through estate cell services, donating ideally. And then when we have to, we often have to bring in a hallway company to take away trash because it's there. It's just so hard. It's knowing how to communicate with the older adult and let them know you're not just throwing it out we're going to we're going to donate it and sometimes what can help help them let go of something is to just let them tell the story about it well yeah you know i'm sure you remember the book by marie condo the um hoof life-changing power of tidying up or something like that yeah when she finally had a kid she realized

her about they did not work there you go but but but But one of the processes she had that maybe speaks to that point is that rather than just throw things away, she would hold it and say, thank you for serving me and then throw it away. I didn't go that far, I didn't really need that. But psychologically, I think, appreciating that you're getting rid of things

because they serve their purpose. Like this is the end life and just like we all have an end life of some sort to understand that material has an end life and not to have to hold onto it. So yeah, so it's interesting. And the book was great, but life isn't quite that simple, I don't think. So let's talk about, I'm sure you have a whole wide range of cases. What's the most common case that you get that you feel this is the one that we do really well

and we get this one regularly? What's it look like in terms of size and, you know, amount of material, amount of steps and things like that? What's the most common case for you? Every situation is completely unique. It's just wild. But primarily our financial engine involves move management because, and sometimes it includes clearing out because someone has passed away. We also do, we're hoarding specialists, we love a good hoard, all kinds of treasures in there. But it's really, they're moving to assisted living.

And they've been in their home of, you know, a couple, you know, three bedrooms, a garage, you know, two level, sometimes a shed in the back or what have you. and they're moving into a one-bedroom and assisted living. And also, they're dreading it. I literally had one client, I've been doing this 11.5 years. I think this is about my third year in, I think. And she said to me, I feel like I'm moving to the place I'm going to die. Right. And underneath it all, for many of them, that's what they're thinking,

either consciously or subconsciously. Right. And so recognizing that they're underneath it. all, they're feeling like this is the last place I'm going to live. And I'm leaving the home I've known so well. And if they've lost espounds of something, they've passed away, you know, they're, they're doing this alone and going to the community where maybe they might have one or two friends who move there too, or they know no one.

Most commonly, yeah. Yeah, but it's extraordinary because in these communities, there are activities. There are people who are your contemporary. So they remember the 60s or the 70s the way you do, not. as an infant or a very young adult. They remember it. And there are so many shared experiences that they can talk about.

There's a lot to do, and people can take care of them. I've been through this with my parents, as well as my wife's parents, so four times. And you hit right in the head, they assume, well, this is where I'm gonna go to die. And my reaction intellectually was, well, if you don't move there, you're gonna die here. Like, you're gonna die from somewhere, right?

And second, you mentioned going from a house or a townhome. to one bedroom place. And when I go and visited, we're trying to get them into the place. I'm thinking, this is great. There's like community areas, but you have to clean it, you have to organize it.

The food's all prepared for you. You don't have to do the dishes. Like, I'll move in if you don't like it. But easy for me to say for them, they feel like they're really getting the end of the line as difficult. So where in the process, I imagine you're getting, are you getting inquiries from the facility?

Or excuse me, where do you get involved? They call them communities, unless it's a skilled nursing facilities. Excuse me. And I get it. It's okay. You know, it's just one of those things that I was told repeatedly early on because I kept doing it. But you were saying, I'm sorry, what were you saying about the communities? I find them really lovely, but I guess are you working with the communities and they're introducing the families?

Are you working with families? And then are you involved with helping them find the right community? Because that's a tough job finding the right community. That's a whole other business, I think. It is. It really is. Usually, we are brought in after they've chosen the place to move. Now, that's not to say that they may change their mind to move somewhere else, but, you know, we often then just help them move to that place. But yes, marketing directors at communities are very kind to us by referring them. They also know that we do this really well. The people, by the way, so you were talking about finding the perfect community. I want to talk about another kind of professional. First of all, the communities are very different. They fall into different categories.

There's assisted living. There's independent living. There's something called a CCRC. Pardon me, continuing care retirement communities. And then there's also warden cares, or here we sometimes call them six packs in the trade. It's a small home. It is really great for people who are, have late stage dementia. It's 24-hour care seven days a week.

And so those are wonderful. But trying to understand all these different kinds of communities and what's right for you is tricky. There are also senior, I have to remember how they put it now, senior residence specialists, also known as placement agencies. For free to the client, they will help them find the ideal community for them. And they are paid by the community if and when the person was, in. But they know what the community looks like. How easy is it to get around? Because you have to

think about that in terms of mobility. You also have to think of finances. And just as importantly as all that, what's the personality of the community? There's a wonderful place of CCRC, Villa Gardens in Pasadena. They have all these people from JPL there, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. So they're fascinating and it's really fun for us to work with them because you know that they were on one of the early they they were a project manager for one of the early mars missions or something like that fascinating well well um question from a regular um tennie michael white says i think senior move management and downsizing is very labor intensive how do you find and keep sufficient labor you hit the ball in the head in terms of how difficult that can be over all these years

I've become so particular, so particular. And so we're not as big as I would like us to be, but at the same time, I know we can do a really good job for our clients. It is very hard, especially in Los Angeles, with all the big distances and things, to find the people who make good employees. And mind you, especially if you're talking to a company

who does what we do, ask them specifically if their colleagues are employees, or are they subcontractors? because having those as employees make such a big difference. First of all, all my employees get along really well with one another. They're used to working with each other. Plus, they know that all of the different taxes are pretty much taken care of for them. And most importantly, they're trained in similar methods. And they know that they're taken care of.

They know each other. As opposed to a subcontractor who can be brought in, and I forgot another important thing, They're not insured. So my employees are covered by workers' comp as well of liability and the other insurances, but workers' comp so that if somebody trips and falls in your home gets injured, my company, Clear Home Solutions, covers that. It's not up to the homeowner, where as with the subcontractor, it would probably, they could go after the homeowner.

So you need to be protected that way. That's very important. The key thing, Michael, that I look for, I've learned to look for. is empathy. People call that a soft skill. It is a hard skill. Honestly, if you don't have empathy, you really can't acquire it. You can acquire technical skills and things like that. You can learn to code. But empathy is a feeling built into us. And without that, you can't do this kind of work. You really have to be able to put yourself in the other person's shoes and be a great listener and be a great listener and not tell them what to do or what they ought to do or anything

but talk to them and ask the right questions so they can make their own decisions but they're just questions that maybe they haven't been asked yet i hope that answers your question i think you did you know as a as a businessman i don't have any employees i only work with contractors because they don't have the kind of intensive customer experience that you do when you say that to me i know that you have a much larger expense, but it also tells me you're committed to a much deeper level of interaction with a customer that some of the contractors can't do. And so those listening, it's easy. We all make decisions based on the cheapest, but you have to know the cheapest is going to be for a reason. And anybody who has employees, for the most part, and also the longevity,

when you have employees, they're there continuously at some level versus contractors by their nature come and go and they do a bad job they'll go and get hired somewhere else and leave you with a hold of the bag as a customer as the referring source yeah yeah and also I will say too I they talk about ageism if any if anything I'm ages towards people being older if anything because they have the often they've gone through their own experience or are going through it right and they just and especially when it comes to the empathy and understanding of how people work, how they behave, and again, being patient. That takes time to acquire. And so, yeah, you'll rarely see somebody in their 20s on my staff for that

reason. That's the opportunity for those of us who are experience. I mean, really, I should be out of the business. You know, five, ten years ago, I would have been aged out because there'd be younger people who could compete. But I believe with technology and for a lot of reasons, there's opportunities for those who are older to compete and leverage our experience, our contacts, and using technology that doesn't exist otherwise, and in your case, their experience

and their personal lived experience becomes an asset rather than liability for somebody who's younger. So excellent point. Very much, though. And that's the truth with a number of other professions who offer senior services. that people who are geriatric care managers or people who do placement,

honestly, the best ones I know are a bit older than they're not, if they're millennials, they're older millennials is supposed to get. We're usually Gen X and even tail ends of the, a tail end of the baby room where I'm 62, so I'm actually the tail. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I was just, I was just my head trying to figure your age out. You threw out your 62, you can't do that. Like, wow, mind blown. Well, very kind of you. Thank you. As you were saying, I'm looking at the back. You have like a little antiquee picture, a little antiquee pillow. I said, this gal is trying to look older than she is.

I weren't, you know, trying to cover up for it. How old is she? 62. Wow, well, good for you. That's actually my, oops, I feel like this, my great-grandmother. Wow. My father's grandmother. He adored her.

Wow. Wow, very nice. Okay. Long time, a good friend of the show, Matthew Price. He's actually a realtor and an auctioneer. in I think North Carolina, if I remember right. And so one thing is he talks about is having, I had the wrong one, that sometimes people,

I think in your profession, I say profession, people work with seniors and the transition tend to add a few tools to the toolbox, one or two that might require a license or require good training, good experience, don't have it and cause problems. Now I know the laws vary by state, you're in California like I am,

you have a National Association, Matthews in North Carolina, Talk a little bit about licensing and where you see competitors maybe venturing into areas that they shouldn't be to the detriment of the customers. Well, it's interesting because you mentioned the carrying transitions franchises. I really recommend finding, if you're going to work with a senior move manager, find one who is a member of Nassum, N-A-S-M-M- which stands for, are you ready? the National Association of Senior and Specialty Move Managers, N-A-S-M-M-D-O-G. Because we are required to be insured. Oh, thank you.

That's great. Yes. We're required to be insured. There is such great training that Nassim offers. It's extraordinary. And there are a few caring transitions franchises that have chosen to join Nassim, but not all. and they do offer kind of estate sale auctions on their websites, and yeah, there needs to be certain licensing for that, and so on. We do estate sales, but we partner with a company called Max Sold.

They are fully licensed. That's their metier, but we work with them to organize things, create the various lots for the auction, and we have a great symbiotic relationship with them. But yeah, make sure they're a member of Nassum. And you might also want to make sure that they've, that they are a certifying senior move manager. I being the nerd was the first senior move manager of the company. And then also accreditation because it's based on a lot of experience and also your business practices. Because they've literally looked through your operations manual to make sure you have one, first of all, and that you're doing things correctly. So that's one way to find someone who's really good.

That was a great question. Thank you for bringing that up. What was the certification organization again that you, I think you run or that you're filling it with? Well, I have a few from different organizations. Oh. The ones that I'm speaking to are from nassum, nassum.org. Got it.

And I was a cert-the-certified senior move manager is for a single person. And then accreditation is for the whole company. Got it. So sometimes companies are sold, and the accreditation goes with them. Yeah, there you go. Got it. Yeah.

And I'm also a certified professional organizer with NAPO National Association of Productivity and Organizing, and I also have a cap certification, which is the certified aging in place specialist that I got from the NIHB, the National Association of Home Builders. I'm a very nerdy girl, so there we go. Good for you.

Okay. Thank you. Well, no. Thank you. And I think it's important to, you know, I know that a lot of real estate agents, particular, are down on their, on our National Association. It's easy to put them down. It's not harder to get involved and make it better.

And I know personally, I know in particular our state is so effective at giving us tools to be better at our job to help our customers. And so it's great to see somebody who's promoting their professional association. I would say, if you can't do that, you're in the right. wrong profession. That's a very good point. And to be honest, we also at NASA, we have a hard time getting people to run for the board. And it just shocks me because actually the way our board is run, it's not a whole lot of work. And it just, I have found, I think with a lot of people, when you're on the boards and things like that and you mention to a potential client, they're

impressed by that. And so it's really worth doing. And then my favorite comment so far is on LinkedIn, and excellent show. Thank you. It is an excellent. Phil does a great job. It's wonderful. Feel free. Comments go to the top of our bill is right or bills both good looking and charming.

Either one will. Here we go. There we go. And you know, especially since a large number of your listeners are realtors, one of the things we do really is to move the move along. It helps both the realtor.

It also helps any communities that this client might be working, moving towards. Because one of the things that is hard for placement agencies, it's especially hard for the individual communities is people will come and literally they stay in touch with them for years because it can take that long to get somebody to move in if they move at all. Because they just just don't understand why communities are so helpful when you're getting older. And so with the realtor, we help get it cleared out. I call it making it realtor ready for sale or lease. The key thing to look for is great communication.

It's as we, I mean, it's in any work, right, Bill? But great communication with the other vendors involved or communities or realtors. So that everybody's more or less on the same page, especially because, you know, sometimes getting the client to move out, in other words, downsize sufficiently to move them to the community can really take a while, especially if there's a hoarding situation. Right. But, you know, we're going to move past the deadline. We make sure everybody knows. You know, it's so important, and that's the purpose of this, of having you as opposed to just attorneys, a lot of relatives say, well, what's the point? The answer is that when we work with others, we can do so much more.

One plus one becomes three when we work together, and I look back on my business and where I work with vendors or attorneys that we work together, everything fell in the place and move more quickly, where we're all different. While it's nice to have new relationships, and it's important to grow, it's always harder. It's always harder to figure out how do you do things. How do I do things? How do I not step on your toes? How do I not sell in a way that makes your job harder and vice versa? So those are good points. Let me just go ahead.

Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say that one of the delights in marketing and doing sales in my industry is that if you sound sales at all, you are out the door. Yeah. It's about being passionate. Honestly, I found that one of the things, that one of the best things I could say when someone would call to ask

about our services was, oh, what's going on? Because they finally had, and they were thrilled because they finally had something who really wanted to hear them talk about it. And that just helps and there are so many different kinds of professions. Bill, I think I mentioned, I'm launching a new company called

Age Wise Alliance, Age Wise Alliance. And it's where older adults and their families will go to find the answers and professionals they need for all of later life's challenges. I have 80 professions listed in the glossary professions and explained. There are, and I'm about to add a few more. People don't know that there's so much help out there for them. Thank you for sure. And each one is defined, especially for attorneys and things like that, the definitions of people can understand what different people do. So they're more educated

and it's less stressful for everybody. It's a very easy side to navigate right now or it's, it's only for Southern California. We will eventually go nature and wide, but right now it's for proof of concept where I'm onboarding professionals right now. So if you're interested, you can email me at Marty at clearhomesolutions.com or Marty at agewise alliance.com or bug bill. And he'll make sure I hear about it. And then we'll go out to consumers in Southern California. I'm aiming for mid-September. But yet it's to educate people. And there are so many kinds of professionals who can help older adults, but they can also help facilitate your work as well to move things along. And one of the things, I forgot, depending, especially if it's probate and you may, you know,

you have people fighting and you may well need a list of what's in the home. Since the beginning, we've offered home inventories where we go in as that neutral third party and document everything, sometimes just photographically. Other times when it's legal, it gets really detailed. I think the biggest we've kicked out so far as 430 plus pages so you may want to find and get to know some company near you that does home inventories just so you have them in your back pocket fantastic um aard points out uh so important for us in the same page it's such a i'm working on a different project where um uh i have an attorney uh fiduciary probate attorney and then they bring in a state

accountant, I know all of them. And so we're all, it's a whole different experience. I've never had that happen before. She asked me, put the link, I put the link in the notes for agewise alliance.com. And I'm going to reach out to you because Marty, I have another friend who on the East Coast doing the same kind of thing

similar that you guys might want to collaborate a little bit or talk about how to work together. I love it. I made note to reach out you tomorrow and follow up on that. Let me just take a quick break and kind of do some housekeeping for those you're watching. Welcome to Probate Week. We do this every Thursday, we're actually moving next week, both the time and the format. Our roots were a Zoom call, and I stopped doing it because it just wasn't enough participation

and probably was the time slot. So we're moving the time slot to 9 a.m. Thursday morning and Pacific time. Anybody who's register will get email reminders and invitations and such, but you'll need to register and come out on the Zoom if you want to be in the Zoom or you can continue to watch it, live stream on YouTube or a replay. have a Facebook group as well as well as starting next week august 8th will be 9 a.m. at a time 12 p.m. noon noon eastern time uh it'll be a zoom call look for that invitation love to have you join us there continue the conversation on Facebook our group is probate

weekly so if you jump in there well you can ask questions post your probate content love to have you promote yourself there if you want to sign up go to probateweekly.com just put your email and you'll be registered and get reminders scroll down if you want to get it on audio formats or see past episodes on YouTube. Our guest today, Marty is with Clear Home Solutions. She's the CEO founder, Clear Home Solutions.com. We'll have that in the show notes as well. And then she talked about the Agewise Alliance.com,

which currently is only in Southern California. Watch for that to blow up nationally and be a great tool for all of us to use together to collaborate. It's so important. You know, I first got the idea several years. years ago because I realized no one knew senior move managers existed. And if I'm in a conversation with seven people I don't know, I will inevitably be asked at least one or even both questions I'm about to say. One is like, where were you six years ago?

And the other is you do that because they realize that they need something like that. And so I realized there were all these different professions that people and services that people were not aware of. And so that inspired Y-wise Alliance. Exciting. Okay, so let's talk a bit about when you get involved. This is going so deep, and I'm not even halfway through my question. I love it. I'm happy to.

Thank you. You've gotten, well. Oh. I'm sorry. I've been battling a cold for weeks here. I figured. I'm so sorry to hear that. It's okay.

Thanks. People who don't use you or when you come in halfway through, What are the biggest mistakes you've seen made that perhaps you could have prevented? Yeah. Well, sometimes also we're called in after they've let go of another company. And if that's the case, it's usually because they have not been compassionate enough. They've been telling me, you have to go rid of this. Why do you have all these things?

They're very judgmental. And the whole thing is you can't judge. Everybody's brain is built differently. And especially with this particular generation of older adults, they were the greatest generation and they were the deprivation generation. They went through the Depression, World War II. And even if they were born just shortly after that, all of their parents' stress and worry and concerns got inflicted on them. So that's why it's hard for them to let go of everything because they think everything has a value and why they just can't, they have such a hard time

accepting help because when they were younger, they could not be a burden. So that is part of that psychology. Additionally, we'll be brought in because the family members have tried to do it, and it's just not happening soon enough. There's often a deadline involved or something like that. Somebody may have gotten injured, like the older adult may have fallen, trying to work on the move. When we come in, we do have to, if there are any packed boxes, we kind of move them around a little bit to see if everything inside is tight frequently it's not so we open them up and repack them to make it because we're very good of packing the only complaint we've really had about our packing is that we use too much paper to which i always reply did anything break no well that's

why we use all the paper to make sure but that's it's frequently just because they're running out of time or they thought one of their adult kids was kind of going to come in from out of town to help them and suddenly that that adult child got either a new project or a new job or they just could not figure out how to do it. So that's when we're frequently when we are brought in. Most often were brought in from the beginning, which is really helpful. That's ideal, right? I mean, that's really what you hope for. That way you're not cleaning up and something else's mess.

I know I get involved where you have like this toxic relationship between typically the daughter and the mother is the most common when I find where the husband, you know, well-intention brings people in and wants to take care of his mom but kind of delegates the task to his wife who maybe over 20-year marriage they had a bad relationship to begin with now you're taking a very stressful emotional situation for mom putting in the toxic relationship and to your point the daughter's always why do you have this why you need all the stuff because she didn't grow up with it right whereas you know the daughter the actual daughter wouldn't say that or maybe the actual daughter does and so there's these relationships that you build on and I think That's why I'm always glad to get professionals who are better at that than I am and let me learn and step in when I have to and not when I don't have to.

Yeah, we know how to ease the tension and when we kind of, and we have various ways to kind of take people to neutral corners. We find, you know, we have free to direct them just to let us settle down because honestly, especially the old adult, but also it affects every generation. I've had grandkids crying in my arms because. what's going on with their grandpa or grandma so it comes out in all kinds of ways for example when i'm training new employees i will say so they will not let go of this pencil it's shortening it's all you know why do you want to keep on hold of this well yes you address the pencil and just say okay i get it you want to okay let's keep that pencil and then start saying how are you feeling this is hard work this is hard work for you so how are you feeling do you want a glass of water maybe

do you want a little break for yourself i can pack up these other things that you've chosen to take and just you and find ways to do that so you they can they you can get at the bigger issue which is that they're terrified and they're moving and they're overwhelmed and they're scared and that that also goes for the adult kids because they're scared too one of the things i make a point of when it's when i have a moment with the adult children is i'll say thank you for doing this i realize your parent may not be thanking you but thank you and that the law is oh, well, you know, I need to help. It's like, no, thank you. Because we work with a lot of older adults who either don't have kids or the kids just want stuff from them and are no help

whatsoever and are sometimes mean. So it's just important to acknowledge that the tensions are there and sometimes there are the people who will, you know, bring up every single grievance they went through as a child. And, you know, you know, And especially after somebody has passed away and you realize they're going to eat up any money they inherited by going to the courts because they'll pay all these legal fees. There's going to be nothing left. So please find a way to get along. And, you know, when you're dealing with either money or stuff, those aren't the people. Those aren't the memories.

You have the memories. They live in your heart. And so especially with items. that can, you know, thinking that way can kind of help let go of things. And also, when you talk to an older adult in that way, who's going through this, also, we work with people who are younger and, you know, they have their own stressors going on. So it's later life is very, is a very emotional time. Both ends of life are usually chaotic, painful, confusing, and unpredictable.

And somebody once said to me, we all remember being. years old, we don't remember being 95, unless, of course, you're older than that. And that's why, you know, with services for children and their parents, they're understood more. Whereas for later life, our culture does, does not want to talk about it. And so that's why things that would end up in probates so frequently. There wasn't a will. They were in denial. You know, and yeah, one of the goals for me with a wise alliance is to make sure people are educated. I think it's going to be the adult kids who are going to be going to age-wise alliance.

So they'll be helping their parents, but also they'll be getting educated about what's out there. And so my goal is to make people, my generation, more comfortable with moving toward later life and planning for it. Well, like anything in life, if you plan and prepare, you get a better result, right?

So part of this channel, I've really emphasized not probate alone, but avoiding probate through proper stay planning. And with this property estate planning, then you bring into the professionals that can say, hey, look, you don't need to move out now. But like in my case, I'm 65. My wife is 65 as well. She's a cancer survivor, so she's struggling a little bit physically, but doing well, thank God. But our bedrooms upstairs.

And while today it's great and I don't mind it, there will be a day that's a problem. I will say today it's a problem in that I can carry things up and down. can't so much but like for example we want to replace furniture well that becomes a little more of a challenge so as well things where the early start playing on these things to think about where do you want to be where do you want to be for the next 20 years this isn't going to work for us for 20 years this is going to work for us for five years 10 years maybe so we got to think about that and the earlier we plan the earlier that process works out yeah I've had clients who are in their 70s like even early

70s, especially if they're moving to a really beautiful community, they'll say, I want to move there now so I can enjoy it for years first. Yeah. Which makes no much sense. My mother did that when she remarried and my father passed. She was widowed remarried to a great man and they lived in this senior adult community, but it was really just adult in terms of age. It wasn't medical service or everything. But I did golf course, beautiful pool, beautiful community room, all kinds of activities I kept thinking I like to live here it's pretty nice now it was a long way from where we live so it's not quite but it was really nice I mean I think why wouldn't you want to live like that if you have a chance to enjoy it and there's an upgrade soon okay so let's talk

a little bit about business development because I know one of the hatch you know you obviously run your business you give service to people who need you know transitional services but you also have to develop the business. So what percentage of your time today is developing new business? And what does that look like for you today? Well, it's interesting because our clients are frequently one-offs. Now, I will say frequently down the line a couple of years later, they may come back. Let's say we help somebody move into a community. Well, their adult children might call and say, well, they passed away, so we need to, you know, that kind of thing. But usually, I always think, remember, it's mostly a one-off.

And so it's really getting to know the referral sources, the estate planning attorneys, probate attorneys, trusted attorneys, family law attorneys, because there's a lot of later life divorce going on right now. A lot. That's amazing. Yeah. Also fiduciaries, people who do senior residential placement. And that way, you know, they know us. they know that we do great work. And those are the repeat clients, so to speak,

because they have continual clients in ways that they're a one-off for them too. So we all kind of, it's a very symbion of relationship. So for those listening, I'm sorry, just for those listening to the real estate agents, it's my job is not to find people who need to sell a house. My job is to find people who know people who need to sell houses regularly,

help them with their business so that I become the partner. That's the way the goal. Yeah, yeah. And for realtors, get to know your local, the marketing directors at your local senior living communities.

Because people don't know and especially there's a specific designation, SRES stands for senior real estate specialist. That indicates that you have done the proper coursework and that you really now work, know how to work with older adults and their families.

And you mentioned that to marketing directors at senior living communities, and it's really great and sometimes offered to do presentations. One really, one great presentation is to pair up with, say, a senior move manager like me and do a presentation at a community explaining what it takes to move because the expertise that you have with senior moves. and then also this person knows how to take you through the process of a move. So that can be very effective. And I think one of the things you said, again, for those listening, we're talking to

professional here, is partnering with somebody else because I know when I built my first phase of my real estate business was mortgages, and I partnered with somebody where I did primarily fixture mortgages. In those days, different companies did justify mortgages. I would partner with him and promote his business. He promoted my business. I found it easier to brag about him, and he found it easier to brag about me.

It doesn't come across as self-serving. I'm being of service, but we both got in together. And then when I get a deal and they wanted to adjust some mortgage, I'd flip it to him and vice versa. So it's really important, I think, in this business, to find as many partners as you can to work together. It helps so much. Towards the beginning, maybe second year.

year, third year, I partnered with Courtney Hockinson, who then had an in-home care company, and she was also a care manager. And we would go around to communities, and it was wonderful, because it's what you were saying. We would brag about each other. And also, it was three people in the meeting, as opposed just one-on-one, and there's something kind of magical when there's, it's a very different meeting when there are three people, as opposed to just two. And so that was we had so much fun by the way actually Courtney has a great new company called call light it's call dash light.com you can hire nurses to to come in to your home and give you a shot or do a medical thing because there are certain things caregivers cannot do they're not allowed to uh change a port

or something like that and it's just great she's a phenomenal entrepreneur very smart business and just a lovely person she's just great Well, and it is magical in your three. I think, without getting into politics, you know, we've never had a president run for office and get elected, but maybe one who wasn't married. Why? In a day with so many people aren't married, why is that?

Because there's something about the fact that somebody thinks you're worth living with is kind of a step of approval, right? And you meet my wife and say, who the heck would ever put up with this guy? And you meet her and go, wow, she'd put up with him. I guess maybe I can. And I think there's some truth to that.

So in business, when you work with some people, you are really getting a stamp of approval or testimonial is very powerful and I also know that we all need some accountability and one of my team members of Florida she's the probate nurse and she calls on senior home relocation specialist with a partner and in different partners because you know she just likes that they get the car together they go together they have lunch together it's fun they're getting to action and so I think there's something about working with the people that's very powerful if you need to get started

than that. It's not, you have an ally. And when you go to meet with an attorney or a marketing director, you have your ally with you and you can, like I say, it's so much easier to brag about somebody else. And it just also, it looks better than you're writing about one another, not necessarily yourself. Now look the way you've come across real estate agents. I know some refer your business and earn your referrals back, others, you've come across

the course of your business. What are one or two of the biggest mistakes you've seen real estate agents? you've seen real estate agents do, that you go, ugh, they just don't really have really thought things through or whipping attention. They don't get it. Like they don't get it or something. It's often not being patient with the moving process because they'll complain about how somebody's not going fast enough. And, you know, it has its own rhythm. I actually just read a couple of articles today about issues with senior living communities have become very corporatized.

Yes. And so that means you have number crunches, crunchers. And for example, Brookdale, for example, I'm just quoting an article from the Washington Post talking about how they decided to add an algorithm. They started timing how long it took somebody to do something, like give somebody a shower or get them dressed for the morning or get them down for downstairs for dinner. And so they used that and they put that in the algorithm to determine how many staff members they need. The thing is every senior, every older adult, every senior is different. And they'll have,

and some days will be great and some days will be really difficult. And so to use just an algorithm to determine staffing, especially during something like COVID, is foolish. And so they've gotten in quite a bit of trouble. Their lawsuits and things like that. So yeah, it's, algorithms are great when you're doing maybe an e-commerce site or something like that. But when you're working with older adults and their families and you're the realtor, handling their basically their biggest financial asset in 99% of the cases, there's going to be so much emotion involved. There's going to be those lovely family dynamics that we all get to deal with. Oh, Joy. And you just have to realize it can be

unpredictable. You can have a target date to put it on the market, but, realize it might take longer. Sometimes it happens faster. I have a very, I have a team who can be very efficient, but our tagline is where compassion meets know-how. It's knowing also when to, when you have to really take care of somebody and get to know them. When we're working with a hoarding situation, for example, we don't just pull up the dump truck and toss everything away because we recognize there's a reason this person collected all these things and they're embarrassed and probably frustrated with themselves, but they not, you know, they don't know where to start. And so one of the first things, you know, the first thing we have to do is establish trust and make, and assure them we're not judging them.

We are here to help you move or, well, move and get it ready for the real term. And frequently during the first session and maybe even part of the second, nothing necessarily goes in a trash bag. Maybe a few things, maybe a few things get set aside for donation. But we need to build that truck and get a feel for. for what this client values and what kind of questions work best for them, like telling the story of the item, then they can let it go.

Or just, sometimes we'll talk, keep, donate, and trash in terms of piles. But for other people, this worked especially effectively with one client I worked with, it's friends, acquaintances, and strangers. So the friends you keep, The acquaintances, maybe you're not so sure. And then there are the strangers that can let go.

Because you haven't seen them in five years or something like that. I find often with that middle pile, the acquaintance pile or the maybe, you can also call it the maybe pile. Often when it's just all those things have had a chance to sit there, they can be often there, many of them are let go.

So again, it's that psychological dance and we have to figure out who that person is. One of the, I'm always hesitant when real estate agents will talk about the seller as a hoarder. You know, sometimes it's just a physical thing. You know, you go out and buy groceries and you cook and whatever, and you're left with things you don't use. You go out buy more. To get rid of it requires the physical strength to put things in a garbage bag, take it out. You look at my house, the garbage, you know, four days a week, it's here, and then we put in the front yard for the pickup.

So you have to walk out the door and carry it. You know, for me, it's not a problem at this stage of my life. My wife can't really do it now, so it sits there. And so I can see where, I've seen where it's just not even as much psychological as physically, they're just having a hard time keeping up with everything it takes to live their life. And so the compassion comes from not being judgmental to say, well, it's not that they're psychologically wanting to hold on to all the garbage. It's just a lot of work and they're tired and they're older and they have it in their pain

from whatever they fell down. They're still in pain because they never got the medical care they needed. And so we'd be really careful, I think, when we put labels on people, be very careful. It's not quite always that psychological issue that we look at. Yeah, and you hit it spot on. I've had so many adult children call and say, well, my dad's a hoarder. Yeah.

And I go there, and the kitchen's okay, the living room, like the TV room, wherever they watch TV is okay. their bedroom is okay and yeah other rooms are just piled high with stuff but is it because

they're not as strong and they get fatigued easily so you know your dad isn't a hoarder he's just older I read 25 books a year where they accumulate

and nobody wants to buy them and even Goodwill not doesn't take them because people don't buy the books at the Goodwill store hard and harder to get rid of with piles of books. And it's not just because I'm lazy. It's like, what the heck do I do with them? And similar

with other things, we, you know, we, you know, buy a lot of paper goods, you know, with inflation and COVID. It makes sense to have more inventory than you had. My wife might forget, well, we bought two or three of these things. Now we have, you know, five or six of them. As you get older, that gets harder. But you know you need salt because you're cooking. So you buy another salt. You come back, you realize you have eight salt containers that you buy. So it's not, it's not really that you're a hoarding it, it's just your purchase system and your in-flow and outflow

degrades over time, and I think we'd be sensitive to that. Okay, last question, because we'll come up in the hour and I appreciate your time so much, but I have to ask this question. Preparing for this call today, one of you notice is all the pictures

on your website have a smile, talking to you, you have a constant smile. You deal with a very stressful, difficult, I know you have families like a civil war, and you're in the middle of it, and the arrows are flying over your head and the bullets behind your back. What do you do to keep your positive attitude and smile during the process so much?

How do you do that? Well, a big part of it was just, I mentioned this earlier, just you go home knowing you eased a burden, even if they didn't say thank you or whatever. It's like you did good work, you did an important work. You help make their lives better. And sometimes too, by kind of knowing how to handle the family dynamics, that all, and you know, helping the people understand, especially the adult. kids just saying, you know, she's not doing that on purpose. I mean, she really, like with dementia,

she really can't remember. And that's his own art is knowing how to work with people with dementia. And it just feels good when you make things better. And my colleagues feel the same way. It's just adult. Like I say, it's not like making fidget spinners or, you know, a computer, well, computer modelers, don't get me wrong, they are necessary. But when you're really face to face with that person and they really appreciate and their life is better by what you've done that keeps us all smiling and so if I could rephrase it if you give me the permission I would say you found how you make a contribution now there are people who find their contribution in that computer screen good for them that would be like a living hell for you I think to be just

manufacturing all day long but for you to be able to talk to people and see the product and see the family's faces you know you obviously get great pleasure from that and so thanks for Oh, you bet. But also it's because no one wants to do this. Who wants to deal with the hoarding situation? One of the key things with our core values, one of the main values is courage. And my colleagues, my staff, will laugh at me when I say, you are courageous. But you had the courage to go into a hoarding situation and deal with it. How many people do you know who would be willing to do that? And you do it because you want to change this person's life so it's a little bit different because you're really like the person's

right in front of you and you're just transforming things and it's such a pleasure well it's crazy if you're going to do it in a service approach right it's easy you know to yell at your mom or yell at your parent and how stupid they are but the courage is to stop and say this is about me it's about them how do i do what do i say how to communicate in a way that helps them move forward and that's I think where the courage comes from being patient takes courage. It's easy to be a patient. And sitting there and listening and also going into the family dynamics and just kind of trying to explain, first of all, with the adult children, it's explaining some things.

But as I mentioned earlier, it's also thanking them for being there. Everybody's going through it. You know, it's people, there are too many people who don't recognize as it is that later life is so hard on people, they're living through it. but people completely ignore what the adult children go through. It is so hard to be that adult child, especially if you're what we call the DA in the family, designated adult.

You're the one who takes care of most with everything. I have a hunch that, Bill, you are a worthy DA in your family. I think I am. Yeah, I was. Yeah, well, yeah, the grown-up, you know, I was at, it was funny, when my mother was widowed and remarried, we went to dinner at a time with her future husband. And I said, I'm confused.

Are you asking me if it's okay for you get married? Like I felt like I was the father and they're looking for my approval, but this is my mother, right? And I actually knew that my stepfather was an attorney who I actually hired on a civil matter to represent me. So I knew him through business. I knew that he knew my father and he liked him. He was a nice guy.

But it was very weird. So yeah, I've worn the hat of the, and then when my sister got married, I had to go meet her future husband and my mother needed me to sign off on it. So, yeah, I've been that for a while, I guess. I'm an adult, I'm an adult for a living, I guess. There you go. Yes, you do, well. Martin, thanks so much.

I really appreciate your time with this today. As always, we've met previously, but this was a deeper dive. I appreciate what you do. We'll continue to look for you as you build out. Again, the company Clear Home Solutions, Clear Home Solutions, like all this will be in the chat box, description down below on the YouTube channel. And then she mentioned an organization NASMM.org,

which is a great place to learn more about if you're looking for that business or looking for other vendors like her in your local market area. And then she's building and the pay attention to agent wise alliance.com, which is her passion project that she's building out here immediately

Southern California, but hopefully nationally and love to be put in that. Nice couple years, you bet. Mike, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time so much. Thank you for your time and being here. And it's always great to talk with you. It's wonderful.

Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate it. If the rest of you again, this is Probate Weekly, we do us every Thursday. Now next week we're moving from 4 p.m. Pacific Time to 9 a.m. And we're changing the format from a YouTube live stream to a Zoom call again, back like we used to.

So love to have you participate. That's the purpose of it. You'll get invitations and notice of that if you're registered. You can register at probateweekly.com. Probateweekly.com. Just put in your email. and register and you'll get email reminders scroll down you can sign up in the various audio format you might like um Spotify and Apple and all that stuff and then past

episodes are available as well clicking here on the bill gross uh at bill gross probate and social media bill gross probate.com is the website thanks to everybody have a great week thank you uh for your support