How To Profit with Residential Assisted Living

Hello everyone and welcome to the Raise Capital Legally podcast and YouTube channel where we talk about topics of interest to real estate syndicators and fund managers with an opportunity for live questions and answers before we sign off. I'm Krisha Young, today's co-host and business development director for the firm, and I'm going to be your host for today. Now before we get started, please note that audio and video from this event will be posted on our podcast platform YouTube channel, website, and social media, and will be made available to the public. So you can ask questions at the end of the broadcast by raising your hand or typing it in the Q&A, and we'll answer them. Just note that information discussed during this event is of a general educational nature and should not be construed as legal advice. So today our topic is how to profit with residential assisted living real estate. So join myself as I interview Isabel Guarino of the Residential Assisted Living National Convention, or RAL NatCon. In this insightful episode, Isabel shares her experience on the growing field of assisted living real estate, offering a deep dive into what makes it different from traditional nursing homes and big box facilities. So whether you're interested in the financial potential of owning RAL homes or wondering if now is the right time to get involved given economic uncertainties, this episode will offer practical advice and strategic insights, and it is a must listen for anyone considering expanding into assisted real estate, uh, living sector. Hi, Isabelle, how are you?

I'm great, thanks for having me.

Yes, thank you for being here. It's such a pleasure. We've been chatting offline. Um, so Isabelle, can you tell us what exactly is assisted living and how is this different from like a nursing home or a big box facility?

Yeah, so residential assisted living is a residential home being used to house seniors, typically 6 to 16 seniors, and it's usually a single-family home, but not like a 3-bed, 2-bath, something a little bit larger, maybe 300 to 500 square feet per resident. So a larger footprint, but the seniors are living in there getting the same care and assistance that they would in a Brookdale Sunrise Atrium, but probably a whole lot better.

Okay, so how is it better?

Better because of ratios. So in a large facility, you may have 30 seniors to 1 caregiver. That is insane, right? One person cannot take care of 30 people, especially high-need seniors. So in our residential assisted living homes, the ratios are 4 to 1 or 5 to 1. So it's a lot more manageable, and the seniors are getting quality care and attention that they so deserve.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, for sure. I mean, if I know one day I'm gonna need this, right? Um, I would much rather have like concentrated attention than, you know, be one of many. And it's, um, like similar issues that we have in our school system and stuff too, right? We've got overcrowding in schools and, and all of that as well. Um, yeah. Okay. That's fantastic. So, um, why are you so passionate about this industry? Like, what's your, what's your story? How did you get involved in this?

Yeah, my grandmother actually fell and broke her hip. And, you know, the doctor called us and basically said she needs assisted living, she needs 24/7 care. So who's gonna come pick her up and take care of her? And whenever that happens in, in a family's life, it is one of those situations where it's like, oh my God, does somebody quit their job and go take care of this loved one full-time? Like, we can't do that, right? We, we need to be working, especially that Sandwich generation who has elderly parents as well as kids who need them, right? It doesn't make a lot of sense to just okay now I'm now I'm a stay-at-home caregiver for my loved ones. So we looked into in-home care, which is insanely expensive, where a caregiver comes to live with your loved one one-on-one. And so the other alternative is assisted living. Every option we searched for for her was disgusting. Like the food was bad, the care was bad, they smelled bad, they were expensive and had waiting lists. So my dad had been a real estate investor for 30+ years to that point, doing all sorts of different things, fix and flip, wholesale, you know, low-income housing, you know, whatever it is, multifamily, pretty much everything. And he did quick math and said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm going to be paying $5,000 a month for her to live in one of these, or I could own and operate the real estate in the business, cash flow $10,000 a month, and she could live for free. So it made a whole lot of sense to get into this because of our own family's needs. He purchased his first assisted living business and the real estate combined with the intent to move her in. She passed before we could move her in, but he really fell in love with the industry. And then my whole family kind of jumped on board as he opened the next 2 homes, and we started training others how to do this as well.

Yeah, what an amazing story. You know, I'm noticing that a lot of people who get into real estate investing have some sort of you know, passion for it because it was a need in their family, you know. And I'm sorry about your grandmother, your grandmother passing, um, you know. And, and it sounds like you guys were really trying to do the right thing by her, you know. And then like out of, you know, her passing, something else was birthed, right?

Yes.

And, and it's this, this, this big business that now it's a family business, right? Yeah. Um, so tell me a little bit more about your family business. Like, how is that dynamic? Like, how did that like Like, pass on from, from your father onto you and, and how you, like, took it and ran with it.

Yeah. So 14 years ago is when he got that very first home, and, uh, then he worked on buying 2 single-family homes and converting them to BCOM, which is one of the methods that we show people how to do this with. So you can buy an existing one or convert one. Um, and really then all of his friends who were in real estate started asking, like, what are you doing? Why are you hanging out with seniors all day? And me And my siblings started to ask the same things. We were like, what's going on? We, we thought you did, you know, this. Why are you doing this? And he's like, just wait. Like, come inside. You'll see. And as soon as we stepped inside, we were like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. You actually feel good about what you're doing and you're proud of the work that you're doing. And he was cash flowing like he never had been before. So it was kind of this just perfect storm that, you know, me and my siblings all said, Can we get involved? And that was about 10 years ago for me, and my sister and brother still work with us today. And we really just started, you know, learning the business from him and really learning all of the ins and outs. And then, you know, 10 years ago is when we launched our Residential Assisted Living Academy, which is where we train people how to do what we do, which is own and operate the real estate and hire the staff. to run all of the day-to-day business. So you don't have to work in the business or live in the business. You're hiring the people to do that, but you still get to basically own both of those components. It's not just a real estate play. It's also a business play.

I really like that because, like, just from the business perspective, you know, like, you're like, I like this model. Yeah. You know, and, and there's other ways that you can do this. You know, campgrounds is another one, right? We, we interviewed somebody about campgrounds a couple weeks ago, and it's like when you buy the real estate plus the business, now that's a whole other animal than just buying real estate, right?

Yeah.

And when you're buying something like multifamily or whatnot, you're buying an apartment, a commercial real estate apartment building or whatever. And now you're a landlord and you've got a bunch of tenants and there's all of that kind of stuff to contend with, right? But when you're buying a business, You're, you're now a business owner, right? But like you said, you're, you're hiring the staff to run the center.

Yep.

So tell me a little bit more about that for anybody who's like interested in, in, in this. Like, tell it, give us some like secrets and, and, and like behind the scenes stuff that people should know with regards to like what to look out for when buying the real estate and the business.

If you're buying an existing business, any business, right, a laundromat, a restaurant, an assisted living, you are buying it the way they've set it up. So there's going to be certain ways that the business is being run that you may come in and say, that's not the way I do business. That's not what I'm looking to do. And so you do need to make sure that you really do your due diligence before and also know that things can be changed along the way. Right? They may say, hey, all the staff, they're going to stay and you're going to love them. And when you take over day 1, you're like, this staff does not vibe with me. That's not the culture I want. And no, even if they want to stay, I don't want them to stay. Or maybe they don't like you as a boss. And so they want to go on, move somewhere else. So different things like being prepared to, you know, rehire people or let certain people go. But you also need to be mindful that when you're buying an existing REI business, There's, you know, 6 to 16 seniors living in this home, which means you can't just, you know, renovate the kitchen and say, oh, sorry, no food for a week. You know, we'll go out to Taco Bell every night. No, that's not how this works. They need to be fed and have snacks and this and that. And it's those residents plus the caregivers plus any visitors. So you may be feeding, you know, 10 to 15 people multiple meals a day. You can't just shut down the kitchen. So there's certain things physically within the home that you can't really do. Rooms, you know, when we first purchased our existing business, the first one, we would wait until that senior passed on and then renovate that one room at a time. And so it took almost a year and a half to renovate the bedrooms alone. And we just had to individually go like that. And then same with the bathrooms. It'd be like, okay. These 2 residents are passed on. Let's get this 1 bathroom done. But the kitchen, we still can't do much with it because it is really difficult to kind of shut it down. So there's certain things that you need to be prepared to change in regards to staffing and culture, but there's other things that you need to be comfortable living with. And that's true of any business, but especially in this one.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I hadn't even thought about that. You know, like, yeah, there's only so much that you can do. And I guess you just kind of like replace the dishwasher if it needs replacing. And this week we're going to do the cupboards, and so everything's going to be in plastic bins, and we're going to replace the sink in 3 weeks from now or whatever. Yeah. So you have to be really passionate then about wanting to get involved in this kind of business, really passionate about it, because obviously there's cash flow in this. So there's money to be made, right? But we here at Syndication Attorneys, really love it when our clients have heart and soul involved in the businesses that they're trying to syndicate, you know. Um, and it sounds to me that that's what your family legacy is all about, you know, like, yeah, okay, we see this cash flow here, which is great because we should have that in our businesses. Otherwise we have very expensive hobbies.

Yeah.

Um, right. But, and also having that like heart connection of like, okay, we're taking care of people here. And it's like you said, you know, in the beginning where there's a lot of these families that just like can't afford those other types of homes, or they're just not up to par, you know, or they can't afford in-home. And so now they're trusting you, right? They're trusting your family's business to take care of them, right? So what would you say, like, do you have more to say about like the heart and soul that kind of goes into this? Like what, what is needed really to like persevere in this type of business.

Yeah, our company motto is to do good and do well. And I think that that really strikes to the core of what you're saying is there's so many ways that you can cash flow in business and specifically in real estate. The sky is the limit. But this is one that not only can bring you, you know, financial reward, but also emotional reward. You are genuinely serving and helping these families who may or may not have other options or really cannot do it themselves, and you're allowing them to be a daughter or son once again. And you get to take that burden away. You get to take that resentment away, that guilt, that frustration, that anger away. And it's really a beautiful thing to get that big fat check wrapped in a love letter of them saying, thank you for loving my dad. Thank you for caring for my mom. That feels good. That ticks the heart box. And not a lot of investments Do that, right? Investing in a mall, investing in a mobile home, investing in, you know, an apartment complex. The cash flow could be great, but it doesn't like feel good. It doesn't give you that emotional paycheck. But with assisted living, I'm always shocked at the people who we train how to do this. They come in and they say, you know, hey, I started, you know, looking into this for the cash flow. But why I stayed is because I feel so good about what I'm doing. And I'm, I'm very grateful for the cash flow. Don't get me wrong. But it's, it's the other part of this that just gives you fulfillment, you know, beyond what you could ever imagine. It's that huge impact. And that's really a beautiful thing.

Yeah, I love all that. But I'm a touchy-feely person. So, but I think it's true. And, and, you know, the more we are connected to, you know, the work and the service that we're doing in the world, the happier we are, I think, as, as humans too, you know, when we, when we get to have Like, go to bed at night and be like, okay, I did a good job today because I know I helped people along the way. Okay, well, let's, let's shift gears a little bit here. I'm, I'm curious to know, well, now that we're on the topic of cash flow, how much money can be made owning a care home? Like, what is that? What are those numbers?

Yeah, the national average to live in a residential assisted living home or an assisted living facility right now in our country today is $5,000 $5,500 per month. So if you had, you know, we've said it, you know, once or twice now, you can have 6 to 16 seniors. So let's call it in the middle, 10, right? If you had 10 seniors living in a home, that's $55,000 coming in gross every single month. Mortgages are pricey these days, and depending on what part of the country you're in, it could be more or less. But let's say average mortgage to house that many people might be $10,000 a month. Now, to run the home, to pay for your staff, your food, your cable, electricity, your activities, your utilities, whatever it is, all of that stuff all in might be around $35,000 a month on an average RAL home. That's cash flowing you as the owner-operator $10,000 a month or $120,000 a year. So that's kind of like the average breakdown in areas where, you know, the cost of living is more. The cost of care is a lot more. So we have students who have rates with their seniors of $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000, $10,000 a month that the seniors are paying to live in their home. And they have way more than 10 residents. They have 12, they have 14, they have 16. So there's a lot of stretch that can happen, you know, in this industry where the sky can be the limit. Most people are cash flowing between $10,000 and $40,000 a month on just one home. But I like to share that 10 example because no matter where you're listening from, If you're in Arkansas or Mississippi or California or New York, those numbers can still apply to you.

Okay. So there's, so there's some money there then for sure, and it will accrue over time, and then your mortgage will go down. Expenses will still go up. Hopefully the mortgage goes down.

Mortgage goes down, and the, you know, you're building equity all the while. You know, you're holding this piece of real estate for a long time, so it's worth more later on. But it's not just the real estate that's building, it's the business that has a value to it. So if you ever decide to sell or to get out of the industry, you're selling the real estate and the business. So you're making money cash flowing every single month, and when you exit, making a big lump sum. So it's kind of a win-win in that regard.

Yeah, I was thinking that very same thing about, you know, you're not just buying the real estate, but you're also buying the business. And so all of those things will accumulate and grow over time. So in your experience, do you know many syndicators who do this and what the investors think about types of investments?

You know, there's really the 2 most popular ways to fund deals like this would be SBA 7 loans and then syndications. So in our training, we do a huge section on how to partner with people and how to do a syndication. And that's why we love working with companies like you all, having you guys at the national convention so that our students can learn directly from you. How to kind of build this, how to get in front of the right people and syndicate these deals, because that is a great way to go about this. I mean, there are a lot of people making a whopping 0% on their money sitting in the bank or God knows where. And if you could offer them, you know, a great percentage back and it's an investment that they feel good about, they're probably going to be willing to work with you, right? They're always betting on the jockey, not just the horse. So You need to be a trustworthy person. You need to do right by them, and they need to like and trust you. But syndications are a very powerful way to not have to use all of your own capital and be able to leverage your network or other people who are looking for incredible investment opportunities.

Yeah. And let's talk about the future of this, right? Because this is not a trend that's going to go away anytime soon, right? So what do you see as like a future trajectory of this type of business? This type of business, whether you're— what was the What was the loan called?

SBA.

Small business. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. SBA. Okay. And, okay. Or syndicating, right? And so, like, what's the future of this? Where do you see this trend going?

You know, right now, the silent generation lives in assisted living, and I believe that there was about 47 million in that generation. But the baby boomers, they're just barely starting to get into this industry, 76 million of them. Right? There's 10,000 people turning 65 every day, and that number is growing and growing and growing. So right now we are on the precipice of a massive spike in need, but we are currently 1.3 million beds short. So we cannot build these beds fast enough. Like, there is such a mega crisis in front of us. But when I see crisis, I see an opportunity. If we fix the crisis, if we fill the holes, and the holes right now are there's not enough beds. There's not enough caregivers. There's not enough. And we have all these people. And when, if we talk about the greatest transfer of wealth from the boomers to Gen X or millennials, it's not going to Gen X or millennials. It's taking a nice big pit stop in assisted living.

Yeah.

And whatever's left over will go to them because most of them will be paying for their care by selling their physical homes and using that capital by using their cash, their savings, their IRAs, their investments. And so they're gonna use up their money because the average stay in assisted living is three and a half years, and the rates have gone up eighty-seven percent over the last twenty years. And they're continuing to just to to to to to like every year the cost of care skyrockets. So if the cost of potatoes goes up, so does the cost of care. If the cost of real estate goes up, so does the cost of care. We're one of the only industries. is that during every recession, we've never taken a dip. We have always stayed strong because it's inevitable. We can't stop aging, right? And everyone's going to need this, just like we started this podcast with you saying, I'm going to need this one day, right? We're all aging no matter how hard we try to stop it. And it's one of those beautiful things that, you know, if you want something— nothing, nothing in life is fully safe, and I want everybody to hear that. Nothing in life is fully safe, but I can pretty much bet unless something terrible happens, we're all gonna age and we're all gonna need care and assistance at some point to some level, right? The, the blessed ones, right? I think, I think, uh, the statistic is that 70% of people will need daily care for an average of 3.5 years. So that means in a room of 10 of us, 7 of us are gonna need care. The 3 lucky ones just get to live on their own, you know, and, and go till the end. But most people are going to need some form of assistance, and that's something I want to bet on.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. My gosh. I try not to think about aging. Now I'm thinking about aging, and I'm like, who do I want to be when I get older? I think I want to be those 3. Right.

And that's— it's a beautiful thing that there's so many health trends and so many people trying different things, whether it's food or technology with red light therapy and things like that.

Mm-hmm.

And we'll see because maybe it will make us live longer, right? Or maybe live healthier towards later in life. The average age someone moves into assisted living right now is 85. And when they move in, they need help with 3 to 5 ADLs. ADLs are activities of daily living. So getting up, showering, bathing, toileting, eating, brushing their hair, brushing their teeth, taking medication. If you need help with 3 to 5 of those things, it's not safe for you to live alone. Like, if you can't do it alone, if you can't get out of bed alone, you, you need, you know, care and assistance. So it either has to be a loved one who's coming to do this in-home care or assisted living.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes complete sense. Yeah. I broke my ankle a couple of years ago and like, I, I needed care. I had to, like, I couldn't get in and out of the shower by myself. Like, I had to like wheel myself around my house a lot. And it was kind of confronting because it was like, oh my gosh, this is, you know, what's coming, you know, not for a while yet, hopefully. But yeah. And so it's so amazing that we do have these opportunities or these types of businesses out there. And, you know, like this gap in the market is, it's here, you know. And I think anybody who is you know, wanting to get on some sort of trend, but do it, you know, in a way that's like where they're connected to it. This is a really good one to get on board with, you know, because— so, okay, well, I have a question about staffing.

Awesome.

So, and I have a question about staffing and I have a question about like location, right? And so because this is real estate, right? You know, do you see benefits of certain— because you were talking before about like, being in Arkansas or being in New York or whatever, right? Like, do you see a benefit between different types of cities or geography or whatnot, um, with regards to the real estate? And then like, what are the challenges, um, and benefits that you're finding about staffing these things? Because you said before you might have to like completely replace your, your entire staff if you buy one of these, right? How easy is it to find The nurses, and, and is it doctors maybe, or whoever that need to come in and, and staff these centers? So I threw a couple questions at you there. I think you've got it though.

When it comes to location, the, the number one thing you're looking for is actually the demographics of the area. You want to be where the majority population is 50 to 70 years old, upper middle class, making twice the median income. You want to be near them because that is not the senior. That's the adult child who's putting their loved one into your home. And they usually get that call that, hey, you know, mom's dementia is progressing. Hey, dad fell. Whatever it is, they get the call. They tour the home. They make the decision, right? A lot of times they're signing that residency care agreement because they're the power of attorney. So being near them, daughter Judy, as we call her, Is the most important, you know, key that you could be. So all 50 states, you just have to narrow in, do a quick demographic research and find out where the daughter Judys live. And you want to be within a 5-mile or 5-minute driving radius of her because she doesn't want to drive 45 minutes outside of town because it's cheaper.

Nope.

She wants it right on her way home from work because she wants the illusion that she's going to go visit every day or at least every Sunday. Right?

Yeah.

So closer to her, the better. So location-wise, we have students in all 50 states, and you can absolutely do this anywhere. But probably you're not— this isn't going to work in New York City or downtown Chicago because those are cities, and we're talking residential assisted living. So you do want a more suburban area. But when you look at the trends of where baby boomers live, right, 50 to 70, or maybe even a little plus now, They're living in suburban areas. And so those are the people we're targeting, right? That more affluent daughter Judy. When it comes to staffing, I will say staffing is like the number one most difficult thing in this industry. And I love to be honest with people about this because if you're gonna get into this industry, you need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Yeah.

I, I know I can make it sound all amazing and wonderful, but it is one of those things that You need to know what's around that corner so that you could be prepared for it. Staffing isn't just a crisis in one individual home. It's a national crisis that we're having. Home health aides or home care is the number one most in-demand job in our country today. We don't have a great solution because the younger people, Gen Zs, and they're not going into that industry anymore. They don't want to be caregivers. They're not going to community college to become a CNA or an HHA, a certified nursing aide or home health aide. They don't want to do that. So we don't have the influx coming in. And currently, 80% of this industry is run by immigrants. So it's usually someone who was a doctor or a nurse in their home country, and they came over here and it didn't translate. And so they say, well, I love seniors and I want to be able to support. So what easy certification can I get to use my skills and my, my heart, you know, and this is the field that they go into. So staffing is a mega national issue, but we do like to show people some key things that you can do to really secure the right people, make sure that you're training and onboarding and retaining them for the long run. And it's as simple as this. If you are paying the same rate that the Brookdale is, but over here they have a 30 to 1 ratio, And over here it's a 4-to-1 ratio. Where do you think that person wants to work? With you. Like, you're already providing the better option. They're hanging out at a mansion all day. They're getting fed 3 meals a day. Their ratios are a lot less. This is a much sweeter gig for them. So for the people who are in the field, you have the better offering. But we need to get more people into this field or figure out a way to work with people from other countries to get them over. To help service our massive need.

Wow. Okay. Yeah, I hadn't thought about all of that. Yeah. So your your program teaches people all of this, right? Like you teach both the real estate side and the management side.

Yes. So at the Residential Assisted Living Academy, we train people how to get the real estate, get the funding, you know, and that's where we work with incredible partners like you all. We show them how to hire the staff, how to get the home license through the state, and how to make sure that the whole thing is running smoothly so that you don't have to be working in the business. You could be working on it.

Right. Yes, that— I love that. Yes. Um, okay, I, I— we're gonna take a short little, uh, jaunt over here to talk about our, um, our book.

Yeah.

For anybody who is interested. If you didn't know, we do have 2 books that our founder, managing partner Kim Lisa Taylor, has written. They're bestselling Amazon books. This one is our starter book, and then we have a more advanced version here. But if you go onto our website, you can grab a copy of one of these for free. Or you can text the word syndicate, S-Y-N-D-I-C-A-T-E, to the number 844-796-3428. That's texting the word syndicate to 844-796-3428. And what these books do is help you to understand the legal requirements behind setting up, you know, a syndication if you were interested in doing something such as an assisted living syndication. All right, let me get back to our screen here. So I want to transition a little bit now into technology. We are like in a technological age for sure. I mean, you know, the last couple of years has put like a lot of us online. You know, we're barely doing stuff in person anymore, although we're getting back into that now. So how has, you know, tech— what are the trends in assisted living, and how much does technology play into those trends?

You know, 10 years ago, it was a very limited tech-advanced industry, right? Almost all homeowners were doing their books by hand, and it was very, very manual. Uh, and so when the state would come over and say, you know, show me this, show me that, it was literally like scratches on pieces of paper, and there wasn't a ton. Well, now with the silver tsunami of seniors coming, we're seeing so many amazing, incredible technological updates, some that are, you know, EMR systems, electronic medical recording systems, or different programs where you can kind of plug everything in at once. Some simple ones, like there's a company called Grove Menus where You can say, okay, we want, you know, a menu that features mac and cheese, steak, and broccoli, and, you know, you make the rest. It will curate a whole month of menus for you that matches what's required by the state. And you can say, John likes this, Polly likes this, right? And it will load it in. You can upload it to— you could say that's for 10 residents. It creates the grocery list, the recipes. You upload it to Instacart, get it delivered to the house. So simple things like using apps and softwares are amazing, all the way down to wearable tech. So just like an Apple Watch or a Fitbit, there's a company called Innovative Senior who uses a, a program called CarePredict. And it's basically a watch, a wearable, you know, tech that the seniors wear around the home. The whole home has geofencing around it. So the caregivers can see on their phone where every senior is physically within the home. If you fall, it alerts the caregivers. If you are not peeing enough, pooing enough, drinking enough water, it alerts the caregivers. It can track UTIs. It can track heart attacks. It is the most incredible technology that we have. It can really, really help seniors during this time, you know. So it's just amazing. It also tracks how long it takes from an alert going off, whether you pressed it or you fell and it got pressed, to a caregiver coming to serve you. So that time is another thing that sets us apart from a big box. When we can publish and say average response time is 90 seconds, and in a big box their average response time is 9 hours, that's major. Why would you Do you ever wanna put your loved one into one of those facilities? And they'll never publish that. They'll use the tech, but they won't publish that because that makes them look like they're neglecting your seniors, which is exactly what they are doing. But they don't have the staff. They don't have the capacity. If you fall, but they've got 20 other calledings before you, guess what? They're going to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and they'll get you when they get you. That sucks.

Wow.

So tech is incredible, and I think it's really gonna put residential assisted living at the forefront. And people are starting to see, hey, this really doesn't feel like the best option. It's like what Uber did to taxi. It's just that little thing that once you get inside that first Uber, you're like, oh my God, this is actually so much better, right? But the first time you heard about Uber, you were like, I have to download an app, like, and get Stranger's car, and it just felt weird. But now you wouldn't even consider getting in a taxi. I'm like, that's what we use now. So it's just so different. And I think that that's what's going to happen when tech advancements really start to hit into the assisted living industry even more than they are now.

Wow, that is such a cool device, you know, like, and, and, you know, just knowing the response time to like, that's That's kinda big. Like, that's a huge gap.

You, you'd be shocked at how many stories I hear on the daily about people's loved ones falling, breaking a rib, and having to army crawl because their, you know, their, their button or their bell or whatever wasn't working. Or, you know, they're double diapered, left in bed, getting UTIs, getting bedsores because the caregivers didn't have time. They said, sorry, I can't come change you. Or as simple as a speech pathologist coming in to see the senior and working with them, and the senior just begging for the first 15 minutes of the session, please take me to the bathroom. No one's come by for the last 5 hours. I just need to go to the bathroom. It's so, so bad. It's so bad. And people don't know until their loved one goes in, and then they're like, it's exposed to this, and they feel so much guilt. And it doesn't matter how beautiful the chandelier is or that there's a pool and Zumba and pickleball. Guess what? If your granny can't get out of bed, she's not playing pickleball. Like, she doesn't care about the chandelier. She cares about getting assistance. And that's what people need to start focusing on.

Yeah. And, and so that brings it back to the point of that ratio that you were talking about before, right? What were those numbers again?

30 to 1 in a big facility and 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 in a smaller care home. Yeah.

Yeah. And you're paying like the same amount of money either way, like, you know, or whether it's yourself as, as the person who, like you said, cashes in for your real estate and is in need of it, or somebody in your family is paying for it, you know, like, I would much rather pay for something that I knew was getting that, like, Customized support for sure. Yeah. Wow! That that's some really sad statistics there.

It really is crazy. It's a it's a crisis, and what's what's hard and what's sad is trying to share this with people who haven't experienced it yet. Those who have, they know exactly what I'm talking about. But when you haven't, it's hard to fathom, and you just say, "Oh, it's not me yet. It's not me. It's not me yet." But once it hits you. You can't, you can't unsee it.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, good for you guys for creating an environment for people to learn about this, you know. And, and like, like we've been saying, you know, it's also a trend, right? And, um, you know, it's not going anywhere. So it's not, it's not like a trend trend, like it's, it's a niche. It's like an opportunity in the marketplace right now to be able to make a difference and make some, make some money, right? So I want to talk about your conference. Yeah, yeah. So it's coming up, um, in October, right? Um, so why don't you let us know a little bit, um, you know, about, about the conference itself? Tell it— tell us about your, um, your speakers and what people can expect at the conference, um, where it is, and, and, um, you know Whatever else you wanna share about it.

Yeah. Uh, our, the Residential Assisted Living National Convention is such a fun event. It is. It only happens once a year. It's an annual event, always in Phoenix, Arizona. This year it's happening October 3rd through the 5th. We have incredible speakers and sponsors and vendors just like you all. Kim Lisa Taylor's there sharing, um, as well as so many other amazing speakers like Kim Kiyosaki, Mark Victor Hansen, and Ed Mylett. So we're really excited for this year's lineup because all of these people are going to be sharing about different topics of how to advance yourself in this industry, you know, giving you different insights and inspirations and discounts and services that you're going to be using and needing if you're in this industry anyways. So we really like to curate an environment for a lot of networking and a lot of support for our care home owners. There will be about 600 attendees from all across the US. And we always have some people from Mexico and Canada too. So we'd love to invite you guys all to come. Everyone who's listening, it is a super fun event. So definitely check it out at ralnationalconvention.com. The resort it's at is spectacular and we really just have a lot of fun and you get to really mix and mingle and make those connections that will just improve your business and 10x it or get you inspired and give you the right direction to go if you're just getting So what would be some of the key takeaways that people would get from this conference? You know, when they come to sessions like you're all, they're going to learn about how to do that syndication properly, right? And how to make sure that you're protected and doing things the right way, but also give you the, the tools and the strengths and the keys you need to feel confident. If you've never done a syndication, you don't know what you don't know. And so coming to a session like your guys's Is really going to give you that confidence that you need. We'll have other sessions, like Syncwise is coming. That's another amazing company that's going to share with you how to market your home and fill the beds. We have other people who are coming to share on memory care, so they'll really show you the differences between assisted living versus memory care. We've got all sorts of lenders. We've got different tools and systems you'll need within the home. Kim Kiyosaki is going to be sharing her own. experience. So that's Robert from Rich Dad Poor Dad. It's his wife, and they invest in assisted living homes here in Scottsdale, Arizona. So she'll be sharing from her own experience what she's seeing, what she knows, what trends are ahead. And so we're really excited for that. Ed Mylett is another big popular guy and, and a big popular name, and he's a business coach to the stars. So people are really excited to hear from him and really get that Inspiration to carry forward into the year. We always have an award ceremony as well, so we nominate everyone you know throughout the year as people open homes and do something special within their homes or within their businesses. So there's always an award ceremony where we highlight some of those students, and everyone who opened a care home in the last year gets to come up and receive their award for opening a home too. So it's going to be a lot of fun. It's like a big party, and. Get prepared if you're coming because it's a lot.

It's a lot. Well, these conferences are, they're full on and some of them can be quite spread like in their subject matter, right? And we were just talking about that before we got live here. And so I like that this is super niched because if this is what you're interested in or you're thinking about it or whatever, This is where you need to be, right? Because you're, you'll, whether you're, you're all, you're already in the process of purchasing real estate and wanting to get into this right now, you're going to learn how to avoid all those, all the mistakes, all the pitfalls from people who are already doing it, right? Um, and you know, if you want to syndicate or whatnot, then having somebody like our firm there will help, um, you avoid any of the legal pitfalls because there's a lot of those that people can fall into too. But, you know, even I, you know, I say to people when I'm talking to doing business development on sales conversations with people who are like, I think I wanna syndicate, but I'm not sure. And it's like, okay, well, we have, you know, our pre-syndication retainer, which allows you to kind of like come in and learn what you need to learn before you even get to the point of, you know, syndicating. And for the people who are just nowhere near ready yet, I'm like, you'll know within like a short period of time if this is for you or not. Like, you're either gonna be so passionate about it and be like, yes, and like, sign me up, like, put me in, coach, or you're gonna be like, yeah, this is not for me. And so I like the fact that this is super niched because people will like leave there with the knowledge and the information to set them up for success, or the knowledge and the internal knowing of like, yeah, this is not for me, you know? Which is good because you don't want people who are kind of wishy-washy And not really committed starting a business like this, I think. Yep.

I agree. You gotta be all in.

Gotta be all in because this is people's lives, right? And it's important to have that passion and that heart, I think, involved in something like this, not just the cash flow portion of it. Yeah. So how can people take advantage of coming to your event. I believe we have a discount code for our listeners here that is CASHFLOW, which is a great discount code. And so you want to let us know where people can go to, to go and grab this?

Of course. If you go to the ralnationalconvention.com and when you click to get your tickets, You can use that promo code CASHFLOW to get a good discount right there. We'd love to see you guys come on out. It's a lot of fun. So relnationalconvention.com.

Yeah, and again, that— it's CASHFLOW, and I believe it's, uh, $200 off general admission tickets. This is so generous. Um, and $500 off VIP tickets. So why would somebody want to do VIP?

VIP is a lot of fun. So we have a whole private room for you guys there, which is like nice and zen, where you can have those more intimate conversations with other attendees or speakers and sponsors. We've got red light therapy, we've got oils, and, you know, all sorts of fun snacks and drinks and just all sorts of swag in there for the VIP members. You also get front row seating, you get access to all of the recordings since there's multiple Sessions going on at a time, so you're not going to be able to be everywhere at once. So you'll get all those recordings so you can review and rewatch and do all of that good stuff. And you just get lunches as well. So on all of the days, you'll be included in that VIP lunch session. Otherwise, lunch is on your own, no extra drinks and snacks and all the fun stuff, and you're going to miss out on half the sessions. So VIP is a great way to go. Just bundle it all up. And you're taken care of for the whole weekend.

I love that. That's so awesome. Is there anything else that I haven't asked that you feel like you want to cover here in today's conversation before we, we start to wrap up?

You know, I think a big thing that concerns a lot of people when they're getting into this industry is they're, they're worried about what happens if an HOA or a city or a state or someone like that tries to tell you no. And says, you know, you can't do this here. And something to keep in mind is that we are a federally protected class because these seniors are considered disabled by the time they need assisted living. So under the Federal Fair Housing Act, we are allowed to do these homes in any residential neighborhood. So an angry neighbor, a city, a state, a county, or a homeowners association, an HOA, they cannot tell you no. And I think that's really empowering because when you get into other industries like Airbnb, right, they can just shut you down in 2 seconds. They can say, oh, the city doesn't want it anymore, and you're out of luck. And so this isn't that. This is something where we are allowed to be there. We have rights to be there. And this is the feds, right? They, they beat anybody. So I think that's important for people to know is that when they're thinking about the risk and, well, what if I get shut down? What if they tell me no? They can't. And we created the RAL National Association that protects all 30,000 group home owners across the country today. So if you do run into an issue, because just because they can't win doesn't mean they won't try, right? So they may try and say, you can't do that here. Okay, you call the RAL National Association. We've got legal backing and power there for you to protect you and write them a nice letter or show up at a meeting or do what you need to do. to get that stamp of approval so you can move forward in the process. Wow.

Okay. So that's really cool. So you guys not only train, offer conferences, and bring people together.

Yeah.

Right. Um, but you also protect.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you own and manage. And yeah, how many do you guys own and manage now?

We have 3 care homes in the Phoenix and Scottsdale market, and then we invest in a bunch across the country. So I don't have anything to do with those. It's just money out and checks back, and that's what I like. But the 3 that we own here, we, we run them pretty remotely. But yeah, we really wanted to build— like, there was no— when we got started, there was no one to show us what to do, and we failed over and over again, and we made so many costly mistakes, and we didn't want other people to go through that. So we started with the academy of saying, Well, let us show you what we know. Let us teach you how to do this. And then it turned into the convention. Let us celebrate you when, when you do get this home up and running, and when you do beat all the odds and push through and make it happen. And let's give you resources that will help your business go even further. And then the association was sprouted from there because people started saying, well, we need protection and we need backing. And the big boys, right, the big boxes, they have that. That they have, you know, the word in with the state, and, and when something happens, they can call the right person and get it done. No one was there to protect us, so we stepped up to the plate and said, okay, we'll do it. And so we kind of wanted that all-encompassing thing. So no matter where you are in your journey, just starting, you know, uh, in the middle of the process, or, you know, you're up and running but you need that protection, we've got your back no matter where you are.

Mhm. What a fantastic business model. I'm sure your grandmother would be very proud.

Thank you.

Yeah. So, um, final question here for you. How can people find you? So share with us the website again for the conference itself.

Yeah, ralnationalconvention.com. And don't forget that promo code CASHFLOW. And then you can find me and all the other companies @ralacademy on all social medias, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, you name it. And we love to connect and chat with you guys there. So feel free to DM us any questions that you have. You can schedule a call there using the link in bio on all of our social medias and ralacademy.com. You can also learn more about the training to get started as well.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Isabel. This has been an amazing conversation. I really appreciate it, and I'm sure Anybody who's even thinking about this or who's already involved in, in this type of, um, you know, real estate and, and business is really grateful that you're there, um, to help and to train and educate and, you know, just be a safe space to land to learn more. Um, thank you for those of you who are watching and listening to our podcast. Thank you for being here. We're very grateful, uh, for you. And if you want to know more about us You can go to our website, syndicationattorneys.com. You can schedule a call, and you'll either come through to me or someone else on our business development team to talk to you about how we can support you as a law firm, get your syndication or fund business up and going. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for being here. Thanks, Isabel.