June 24, 2025 • 44 mins
Listen in as host Steve Kuker, President of Senior Care Consulting, visits with Ben Souchek, owner of Home Downsizing Solutions. Ben shares the story of a client that received a competitive offer that wasn’t so competitive after all, explains that many large corporations are selling more inventory than they’re buying, and what affect this has on the market. Ben discusses how your mortgage payoff could be different than what you expect. Steve shares an interesting conversation he had this week with a client, reviews some incredible online information about a LTC community, and compares Senior Care Consulting to the “free” referral services. Spoiler alert: they are not free at all! #SeniorCare #SeniorCareLive #SeniorCareConsulting #SeniorLiving #KansasCitySeniorCare #SeniorCarePlacement #SeniorCareAdvisor #Franchise #SeniorCareFranchise (800) 331-6445
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Are you caring for an aging loved one? Are you
a senior searching for answers? Welcome to Senior Care Live,
a program dedicated to you, providing information, education and resources
for seniors and their caregivers. And now America's senior care consultant.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Steve Keecker. Hello and welcome to Senior Care Live. I'm
Steve Keeker. You're a senior care consultant and I really
appreciate you tuning in today. We have a wonderful program
on tap with my friend and special guest in studio.
He's mister Ben Sochek. He's the owner and operator of
Home Downsizing Solutions. Write this information down. You're going to
(00:45):
want to reach out to Bend. It may be tomorrow,
it may be in the near future, it may be
a year from now. You never know, but you're gonna
want to listen to Ben. But here's how you reach
out to him eight five five two nine one five
zero zero five where you can also go online at
home Downsizing dot com and Ben welcome back to Senior
(01:06):
Care Live.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Hi, Steve, thank you for having me on today and
as always, looked forward to talking to the listeners and
hopefully providing some great value and information for them today.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Absolutely. And you know you and I spoke right before
the program today. You were sharing a couple of stories
on and I'll let you tell the story, but essentially
what it was was you met with the homeowner, you
did all the evaluation, you made a really attractive and
fair offer to buy their house, you know, as is,
(01:37):
and then they they called you back, and that's where
the story gets interesting. And I guess I'll let you
take it from there.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Okay, thanks, Steve Yes met with a homeowner and he
had contacted a couple of different companies, Yeah, and spoke
to me, told me all about the house. I sent him
a proposal for the property and he called me and said, well,
you know, I have an offer that is the numbers
(02:06):
on it is more than what you're willing to pay.
Is are you willing to come up on your offer
or is there anything else that you can provide that
would provide more value than this other offer? And I
said no, I said, if you're comparing apples to apples,
and he's going to give you a net figure that
is higher than mine and accomplish the same thing, which
(02:28):
was letting him stay in the house for more than
thirty days and all the benefits that we offer. I said,
I'd probably take the other offer too, and so that
was kind of the end of the conversation for the
time being. And about four days later, though, he called
me back because one of the things is he wanted
to close within a few days but stay in the house,
or he wanted to close in a few days to
(02:49):
have the funds to buy a new house, but not
move until thirty or so days afterwards, which is a
common thing that we work with.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's a timing issue, correct.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And apparently the off the other offer that he thought
he had was not what he was told, and so
he decided to go with our offer because I could
give him the benefits that were of value that he
expected with that house sale.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
See, so that's interesting. So I tell this story all
the time that falls into the category squarely into the
category of over promise and under deliver. And so for
our audience, you know, some of these offers, some of
these services that sound fantastic, you have to wonder is
(03:42):
there a gotcha in there, or maybe it's just not
quite as attractive as it was sold or promoted. And
that's exactly what happened here.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
That's exactly what happened. Yes, and I'm not sure how
often that happens to people, But there certainly are companies
out there, like we've talked about Steve in the past,
that are what are called in the industry wholesalers that
if you look at their website, they state that they
buy houses. On the phone, they will tell you they
buy houses. If someone even comes to your house to
(04:14):
look at it, they will tell you that they're going
to buy your house. But if you look at the
paperwork closely, they sometimes have closing dates of twenty one
to thirty days from the time of signing the agreement.
Their mode of operation is that they want to get
their inspectors or contractors into the house before they close
to get quotes. But these so called quote unquote contractors
(04:38):
are actually potential buyers that they are hoping to flip
that contract to. And so if that's the case, I'm
not saying all the companies are like that, because they're not,
but there's certainly some of them out there that are.
And if you think the house is sold but it's
one of these wholesalers, it can leave you in a
very bad position.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, because they own the rights to that property for
a period of time. Whatever your contract says, that's great.
And so what you're saying is that, okay, hey, well
we'll buy your house. But in reality, now they're average,
they do not have the cash in hand by that house,
correct or they're not willing to do that. And so
all they're trying to do is then advertise your house
and then sell it to someone else, collect the proceeds,
(05:21):
and then pay you what the offer was. And if
they don't get that done, you're you were led down
a road that is not not so good.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
That's correct. And I've heard of situations where they will
either tell the homeowner you know, I didn't realize that
your house needed more work than what we thought it did,
and so they will try and negotiate a lower price
so that they can accomplish their their flip the flip
of the contract, or they'll just disappear and you won't
(05:52):
hear from them again. And or sometimes if the original
contract states that they have maybe nine days to accomplish
what they want to accomplish, and you as a seller realized,
you know, this is something that I didn't realize was happening.
I want to get out of the contract. Yeah, I've
heard of situations where this wholesaling company will sue the
(06:12):
homeowner to enforce their contract.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Not a good situation, Nope, So look, just avoid all
that and call Ben. The The individuals that I have
on my program, Senior Care Live are straight up trustworthy
individuals and trustworthy services. Ben is as great as it gets.
(06:38):
Ben is a veteran, veteran owned business. High top rating
from the Better Business Bureau. Ben in business for you know,
well over twenty years doing all of it? How long?
How many years?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Just went? Over? Twenty eight years?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Okay, okay, well all right, darn near thirty. So I'm
sure changing you on that. But yeah, so Ben knows
what he's doing. Okay, you can try us been. He's
going to make you an offer. If it looks great,
go for it. If if if you want to go
a different path, I mean, he might even recommend go
go go a different way. But here's the bottom line.
(07:11):
Give Ben a call. If you're thinking about selling your house,
you want to you want the convenience of downsizing and
just moving out of out of your house as is
and not leave all the all the stuff in the
house to bend the repairs and everything and walk away
from it. Eight five five two nine one five zero
zero five. That's toll free anywhere in the country. Eight
(07:31):
five five two nine one five zero zero five. And
he has an excellent website, Home downsizing dot com. And
then we were also talking about interest rates. A lot
of folks, I think, felt like maybe they were gonna
they were gonna start to fall, and maybe there's been
just a tiny bit of movement, but there's still like
around seven percent, aren't.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
They depending on where you're at, that's correct. The long
term thirty year mortgage rates are still around seven percent,
which is still making it expensive for a lot of
people to get into buying a home these days. That's
that's correct.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And you know, we all and maybe I remember, and
this has been a long time ago. It has been
you know, the late seventies. I remember twelve thirteen, you know,
eighteen percent, yeah, maybe even twenty So it was just
just crazy. So relative to that, seven doesn't seem so bad.
But we got spoiled rotten on you know, two and
a half three percent for a really long time. But
(08:25):
the bottom line is they're not coming down. But and
it's still a pretty good seller's market. We could use
some more inventory. But you mentioned that a lot of
these large corporations, for the first time maybe in a
long time, they're actually selling more of their inventory than
they're buying. So what effect does that have on the market.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
That's a story that I saw earlier this week Steve
that I believe in the first quarter, first half of
this year, there were more net sales from investors or
investment companies than there were purchases since I believe twenty
twenty one for that. And so again, this is very
locality dependent. Sure, sure, so in some areas you're not
(09:10):
they're not going to see the effects of this as
much as other areas. But you know, some of the areas,
even back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, parts of Florida
where a company would have fifteen thousand houses in that
one metro area and that was just one company back then,
even wow. And so depending on what these companies do,
(09:30):
they can really influence a local market if they decide
to liquidate or anything like that. And so what it's
going to do locally, you know here in Kansas City,
who knows. But just be aware that there are factors
out there that influence your housing market. You might not
that most people might not think about.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, and if they sell it a bunch of their houses,
it's going to flood the market with inventory. And now
you have a lot more supply, and maybe that exceeds
the demand, and all of a sudden, then the home
prices or the sales price is going to drive that
down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Potentially might come down and might make the seven percent
interest rates you know, more affordable to buy. So yeah again, Yeah,
it just depends on your local market.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Excellent reach out to ben so check it Home Downsizingsolutions
dot com or you can just tighten that up a
little bit Home Downsizing dot com eight five five two
nine one five zero zero five And now the Senior
Care Live Question of the Week. In reference to a
person's mortgage, the payoff is the same as your balance
(10:38):
do Is that statement true or false? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit Seniorcare Live dot com.
We'll have more with Steve coming up next. A recent
Internet search for nursing homes in Kansas City provided thirty
(11:06):
two million results. It's daunting to think that there are
over three hundred and fifty senior care communities to choose
from in the Kansas City metro and on average, you'll
spend fifty to one hundred hours trying to find.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
A place for your loved one.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
If this sounds overwhelming, that's because it is. I invite
you to reach out to Senior Care Consulting. We've been
serving family since two thousand and two. With our premium service,
we do most of the work for you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You'll spend just a.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Few hours of your time finding the best place available,
and you can trust us to be objective because we
don't receive reimbursement from any provider. We work for you.
To learn more, call Senior Care Consulting at nine three
nine four five twenty eight hundred nine nine four five
twenty eight hundred, a placement service with integrity at Seniorcare
(11:57):
Consulting dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, go to Senior
Care Live dot com. Now back to the Senior Care
Live question of the Week. In reference to a person's mortgage,
the payoff is the same as your balance. Do is
that statement true or false? And the answer is false,
(12:33):
The answer is false. And Ben, why is that statement false?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Well, Steve, when a person receives a monthly statement from
their mortgage company, they usually have a balance on there,
and of course that's the principal balance. But a payoff
is always going to be something a little bit different.
But especially in situations that I've run into in the
last couple of weeks, actually where and this might not
(13:02):
be an issue with your listeners near as much as
the general population, I guess I'll put it that way.
But in one situation, a person had been behind on
their mortgage back when, actually when COVID happened several years ago,
and during that time, they signed a what they thought
(13:26):
was a modification to their mortgage with the lender, and
it actually ended up being instead of a modification for
their primary loan, it was actually paperwork to create a
second loan. Oh boy, And they had really no idea
that they had even signed anything like this, And apparently
(13:46):
they're not. They weren't the only ones in this situation.
Our title company had heard of this happening numerous times
with a large nationwide lending company. Wow, so instead of
having a payoff amount for around one hundred and fifty thousand,
they actually had two loans that required about one hundred
(14:09):
and eighty or ninety thousand, which made the debt more
than the houses worth.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh mine, now they're upside down.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So they're upside down, which would have required a short
sale what's called a short sale in order to sell
that property. A second issue was a gentleman that I
mean anytime a person gets into not being able to
make mortgage payments as an unfortunate situation, but in this
especially was a health related issue that had been going
(14:37):
on now for about two years. And he also was
under the assumption that he owed about two hundred and
thirty thousand or so, and when we requested a payoff
from the lender because it had almost gone to a
foreclosure sale, he actually owed closer to two hundred and
eighty thousand.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh boy. So what happened was what made up that different?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
You have things like when a lender when a person
is not making the mortgage payments, then the lender has
the ability to make tax property tax payments to the
local municipality for tax payments. Okay, home insurance and back payments, back, interest,
legal fees. They there can be all kinds of different
(15:23):
things that a person doesn't think about.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Late fees and penalties and late fees.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
All of that stuff add up as well. And so
when a person thinks, okay, I don't owe you know,
I owe X, well, it can be a lot more
than X by the time you include all of those items.
And fortunately for him, even though he contacted us less
than a week before the forclosure sale, even though this
(15:50):
has been going on for two years now, the lender
was willing to stop and postpone the sale because we
showed him a purchase agreement that we were going to
our company was going to buy the house, and the
proof of funds that we could actually financially do that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
So that's another situation where a wholesaler probably does not
have a real proof of funds, but we could show
him something from the bank that we had the proof
of funds. So we're in the process of closing that right.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Now, okay. And then what that did was it saved
him from getting literally kicked out of his house because
of foreclosure. That's correct.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So because he was in the kind of a unique
situation that he still had equity in his house. But
he's able to We're able to buy that house, let
him stay there for a few months so that he
and his family can transition to a new home without
being pushed out of their current home.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yep, and just kind of start over with the cleed slate.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Just start that's correct, and at least have some money
in his pocket from the equity instead of some people. Understandably,
nobody wants to lose their home, but some people hang
onto that home for so long that they lose any
equity that they would have had and they're kind of
a slave to that house. Yeah, which is not a
(17:16):
good situation either. So at least he's able to get
out of the house, get a new home, and have
some money to start over with.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
If this is resonating with you, I know this is
turning some heads. I can feel it right through the
radio waves. Reach out to Ben Sochek. He knows what
he's doing. He may be able to help you, even
in a difficult situation like we just discussed with these
couple of clients here eight five, five, two nine one
five zero zero five. We're online at home downsizing dot
(17:49):
Com and home Downsizing Solutions is not one of these
I think there in my opinion, I think it's a
little bit shady to be potentially misrepresent yourself and say, oh,
you're going to buy it, and when you really have
no intention of buying that property. You're just trying to
find a buyer to buy that contract and then you
(18:12):
would just send them the net. So I don't like that.
So with Home Downsizing Solutions, you don't have to worry
about any of that stuff, any of that funny business.
Home Doownsizing dot Com eight five five two nine one
five zero zero five And Ben tell us about your book,
you have a really really helpful workbook that can help
(18:33):
people who are in that downsizing mode.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Correct one. I have the stress Free Home Downsizing book
that's available on Amazon, and I would love for your
listeners to go to Amazon buy a copy, and hopefully
you like it and give me a good review because
I could certainly utilize those on Amazon. Sure, but if
you would like a free copy of our stress free
(18:58):
home downsizing work book, you can just go to Home
Downsizing Solutions or Home Doownsizing dot Com. Go to the
resources tab. There's a number of free resources under that tab.
That you can download, and one of those is that
workbook that you can download, and I think it would
be a good resources, a good resource if you are
(19:20):
looking at selling a house and moving to a smaller home, apartment,
or other type of senior living community.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And I'll tell you what. We've talked about this before,
but I've spoken with so many people, and you've spoken
with way more than I have. But most people, that's
the hardest part of moving is oh my gosh, what
do I do with all this stuff? And what can
I take with me? What do I need to sell, donate,
throw away, et cetera, et cetera. And this workbook would
(19:50):
help you work through all of that.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
That's correct. I think it really is not that it's
just me talking about my resource here, but I've been
told by other people that it's a really good re
if you are in that process. Because yes, I've talked
to a lot of people that want to downsize or
they know that they really need to downsize, but they
just have no idea where to start. And so this
(20:12):
can certainly start a person with that process.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So you go to home doownsizing dot com and then
go to the resources and then find What's what's that
workbook called again.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
The stress Free Home Downsizing Workbook?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
All right? Ben Socheck with Home Downsizing Solutions eight five, five,
two nine one five zero zero five were online at
home Doownsizing dot com and Ben, thanks so much for
coming in today. Excellent as always.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Thank you Steve for having me.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Have a great day.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
All right, we'll have more coming right up.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. Have a question. This is Seniorcare Live dot Com.
Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Hello, this is Steve Keeker, President of Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so excited to announce that we are expanding nationwide
by awarding Senior care Consulting franchises. We help our clients
find the right senior care community, including assistant living, memory care,
long term care, and continuing care retirement communities. We are
(21:23):
not another run of the mill, free referral service. We're
very different. We offer replacement service with integrity. Owning a
senior care consulting franchise offers many benefits. Our market is
not affected by the economy. Operate from your home office
and enjoy work life balance, pour your passion into a
business you can be proud of. For more information about
(21:46):
owning a Senior care consulting franchise, call eight three three
seven two two three seven two six eight three three
seven two two three seven two six or visit Senior
Care Consulting Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live
(22:11):
on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts to the program,
visit Seniorcare Live dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, So, earlier this week I had a really
interesting conversation with a super nice lady. She said, Hey,
we listened to you on the radio, and we've listened
(22:33):
to you for years, and now the time has come.
We we believe that we need your service. So she
was going through and explaining their whole situation and uh,
and it was it was complex, but this is what
you know we at Senior Care Consulting, I mean, we
work with these these different situations every single day. And
(22:57):
then she started it spawned all kinds of questions, as
it always does. So I was explaining all of the
details that are relevant to her situation and her needs,
and I was providing a tremendous amount of information. Just
just did a phone conversation over the phone like I
(23:19):
always do. And then she stopped, and then she just
blurted out, wait, wait a minute. The other place I called,
they didn't tell me anything about any of this. And
I'm like, oh boy, you talk to somebody else. Also,
she goes, well, yeah, yeah, I did. And what happened
(23:43):
was she had called one of these free referral services.
Free is a powerful word, folks. I'm going to talk
you out of that here just a second. I'm going
to make my point very loudly and clearly. Ever since
she signed up or just just did a basic inquiry
from the quote unquote referral service, her phone has just
been exploding with I don't know how many dozens and
(24:06):
dozens of calls in a short period of time from
very aggressive salespeople. This is what happens when you do that,
you touch their website, they do even if you don't
fill out a form, they do data mining and they
go back to your IP address, which tells them your name,
your phone number, your address, all of your information. They
can go backwards and contact you that way. God forbid
(24:29):
if you fill out a form, if you fell out
a form you are theirs that is sent out to
all kinds of their business partners who are then trying
to get to you first to make their sale. This
is the kind of stuff that you get, folks. It's
not free at all, by the way. I'll explain that
in a minute. And I said. She was just perplexed.
She's like, well, wait, wait a minute, you're getting into
(24:52):
all sorts of things that I mean, I really appreciate
it too, by the way, I had no idea how
this works and how that works and all these things.
She said, this is a lot more of a complex
situation than I thought. And you have really opened my eyes.
They didn't say a single word about any of that,
(25:14):
and I just started laughing and I said, well, ma'am,
of course not. Of course they didn't. And then she said,
well why, And I said, ma'am, I'm a real consultant.
They're just trying to make a sale. They're going to
tell you just enough to get you just interested enough
(25:40):
to choose one of their contracted business providers. So they
don't really have an incentive to educate you on all
the things that I just reviewed with you simple conversation
over the phone. They just need you to choose one
of their contracted facility so that they can receive their
(26:05):
several thousand dollars kickback. That's all they need. So if
they spend all this time talking to you about all
these other things, it doesn't really benefit them. So they're
going to spend the least amount of time with you
and tell you just enough to get you interested in
(26:25):
one of their partner providers. You choose that partner provider,
you move in. What they've done was a they accomplished
their goal of increasing the occupancy for their business partner,
and b once you move in, that business partner strokes
them a check for thousands and several thousand dollars. That's
(26:46):
how it works. It's not free at all, not free
at all. So I just thought that was interesting. I said, ma'am,
I'm an actually, I'm an actual consultant. I educate you
on stuff. They're just trying to make a sale. Such
a stark, stark difference. So I'm working with just this
(27:09):
wonderful fella and he's pretty heartbroken. He can no longer
care for his wife, who has Alzheimer's. He's done a
great job for her, but everyone has their limits and
he's approaching his and he knows it. And so we're
in the middle of, you know, conducting our research, trying
(27:31):
to identify our top options. And I checked out one
place that was kind of within the location parameters, and
I was just shocked at what I ran into. And
so this would be at the long term care level,
and this is some of what you get with an
actual consultant at senior care consulting. We don't just just
(27:54):
recommend places on our list that are going to give
us our kickback. Okay, we researched the entire marketplace and
I had I had one I had one client one
time he said something that it's always stuck with me.
He says, Steve, along with you knowing the best the
(28:14):
best options available for us, he said, what is just
as important, maybe more important, is you know the places
to not go. And I said, you you got that right.
I know exactly where we're not going, so and that
is important. That is important. Okay, So I stumble into
this one and I just started doing the research to
(28:37):
figure out our top options. This one is definitely did
not make the list. And I looked at the penalties
that they have been charged in the last three years,
and I see that a couple of years ago they
had they received a penalty from the government of one
hundred and thirty one thousand dollars. Wow, that is a huge,
(29:01):
huge penalty. So when when when you when you're running
one of these places, and then if you're going along,
and then about every year or so plus or minus,
state representatives will come in unannounced and do an audit,
a survey, okay, and if they find any issues, then
(29:23):
they will write a citation is called a deficiency. And
if it's a really bad situation, they can find you
and if it's really bad, they can deny government payments
to you or your facility until you get that fixed
and cleaned up. So along with this one hundred, this
(29:44):
whopping one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars penalty, they
also had to denial a payment from Medicare and Medicaid
until you get that cleaned up and fixed. That's a major,
severe penalty. And then I run into a larger penalty
that happened this year, two hundred and seventy thousand dollars
(30:06):
penalty and another denial of payment. I about fell out
of my chair. I have never seen a federal fine
as large as that, not even close. One hundred and
thirty one is a whopper, but twice as much two
hundred and seventy thousand dollars fine. So I'm like, all right, well,
(30:30):
so now I need to know what happened. So then
I go into another part of my research. I find
out that in the most recent surprise health inspection, they
had nineteen deficiencies, and the average for this state is twelve. Okay,
so they're way above average. And then I look at
(30:54):
the number of complaints in the last three years that
resulted in a citation or a deficiency. Sixty complaints in
the last three years. Sixty. I'm like, you got to
be kidding me, Oh my gosh, what's going on? So
(31:14):
then I continue with more nine quality of life and
quality of care deficiencies. Right, we have abuse and neglect deficiencies,
we have resident right deficiencies, pharmaceutical deficiencies. It just goes
on and on and on and on and on. So
you go through here and here is a J level
(31:37):
deficiency that is as high as it gets. That means
that a person's health and well being is in immediate jeopardy.
You never want to see a J, and you could
have a K and an L. You know, that's pretty rare.
But if you're going to have this high level, it's
usually two involves one person, maybe a couple, usually one
(31:57):
some incident with one resident. Here's a second JAY level
deficiency and it goes through and you can read. I'm
not going to read all of this stuff, but I'm
literally doing this live. Let me go back that couple
of years where they had that one hundred and thirty
one thousand dollars fine thirty one deficiencies during that one
(32:18):
survey or audit, and again the average for that state
at that time was ten. Okay, So here's here's a
question to ask yourself. Is that a place that you
would ever take your loved one? That's the question. Think
about it and I'll have more in just a moment.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or a guest of his show,
this is Seniorcare Live dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
We'll have more coming up. So you've been living into
Pendle at home, but now it's not working out. It's
time to begin searching for a senior care community. But
with hundreds of independent living, assisted living, long term care
(33:10):
and memory care options. How are you supposed to determine
the best place for you? Hello, I'm Steve Keeker, and
this is exactly why I created my firm, Senior Care Consulting.
I help my own grandparents through this difficult process, so
I know how overwhelming this can be. Our business model
ensures credibility and objectivity. We work directly for you and
(33:33):
we never receive reimbursement from any provider. We've helped hundreds
of family since two thousand and two, and we can
help you and your family as well. Call today for
a free consultation at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred. Nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred a placement service with integrity at Seniorcareconsulting dot com.
(34:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit seniorcare Live
dot com. All right, So back to my question. Is
that place that have that's had sixty complaints over the
last three years that resulted in a deficiency. Is that
(34:26):
a place you would ever take your mother, your father,
your spouse, your loved one. Most people would say no,
having one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars fine, knowing
that is a huge, gigantic whopper of a fine, then
followed up by a two hundred and seventy thousand dollars fine.
I've never seen anything close to that. Is that a
(34:49):
place you would ever take your loved one? Most people
would say no, and maybe even hell no, right, no way,
there's no way. But I got a question for you.
What if that free referral service frees such a powerful word,
(35:10):
so attractive, it's really you get what you pay for, folks.
What if that free referral service what if they're on
their list? What if that place is on their list?
And what if you're like, oh, well, I mean I'm
trusting them. I mean it's on their list, and so
oh yeah, well let's just go to that. Because you
(35:32):
weren't told any of this. Remember what the lady said, Well,
you've you've shared so much information. They didn't tell me
any of that information. Nope, they tell you just enough
to make the sale. They're not incentivized to do anything
different than that for this particular free referral service. There
(35:52):
are a few of them like that. What if this
place with one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars fine,
followed up by a two hundred and seventy thousand dollars
fine denial of payments and admission admissions bands. What if
(36:13):
that place is on their list sixty complaints over the
last three years, sixty Are you kidding me? What if
it's on their list? And what if you just unsuspectingly
choose that one because they didn't share any of that
stuff with you, any of that information. What if? That's
(36:37):
why I gladly differentiated myself with this very nice lady
who is going to use our service, by the way,
to help with her situation, in her need and her family.
That's why I said, ma'am, I'm a real consultant, I am,
how about that? They're just trying to make a sale.
(37:00):
And she said, it's all so clear to me now.
I had no idea. I had no idea. So let's
take just a few minutes to compare my firm, Senior
Care Consulting with the free referral services. And I always
have to put up my air quotes free referral service,
(37:21):
They're not free. They're not free at all, not not
even remotely close. They are absolutely not free in any way.
They get paid big time money to convince you to
choose a place on the list. You know, there's one
of these free referral services and on their website they're bragging, Oh, look,
(37:45):
we have agreements with you know, a certain number of
senior care providers throughout the country blah blah blah. And
I did some quick math and they represent less than
twenty percent of the market, less than twenty percent of
the options available. Oh that's exciting, isn't it. So with
(38:08):
a real consultant, the real consultant will explore all of
your options in the market, not twenty percent or eighteen percent,
whatever the number is. How about that senior care consulting.
We work directly for you, We represent you and your family.
The free referral services represent an incomplete list, maybe even
(38:31):
less than twenty percent of area facilities. They refer to
them as their partner communities. They're free to you because
they receive large commissions if you choose one of their
recommended partner communities. That's exciting, isn't it. They are incentivized
to recommend the places they have a contract agreement with.
(38:55):
Some would call that a conflict of interest. This is
why I have trademarked with my firm, Senior Care Consulting.
I've trademarked the phrase a placement service with integrity. We
don't receive a single penny, never have, never will. And look,
I've been offered the Moon. I have been offered so
(39:18):
much money and airfare for my wife and I to Hawaii.
That's thousands of dollars season tickets to the Chiefs. Are
you kidding me? You can't get those anymore? They're worth
so I don't know how much do it work? Now,
it's a ridiculous amount of money. One lady had a
stack of brand new Crispy one hundred dollars bills on
(39:41):
her desk saying I could buy more toys for my
kids that Christmas. Now that one made me mad. I said,
are you kidding me? You're dragging my kids into your bribery.
Shame on you, Shame on you. Fortunately she retired right
after that and I don't have to deal with her anymore.
But anyway, it's it's unbelievable, folks. A placement service with
(40:02):
integrity is what we offer Senior Care Consulting. Our job
is to help you make critical decisions. Their job is
to generate revenue by helping to increase the occupancy and
census of their partner communities. We don't. We don't accept
reimbursement from any care provider. Ever, they're typically paid eighty
(40:23):
ninety up to one hundred percent of the first month's
cost by their contracted partner communities. Again, conflict of interest.
I think it's a gross conflict of interest. We research
the entire marketplace to find the best place for your
unique situation. These other places primarily recommend a limited number
(40:44):
of their partner communities. You get how this is going right?
When researching the market we do not provide your personal information,
acting as a filter so that you're not contacted by
any sales representatives. We represent you the point of contact.
Not all, but some free referral services forward your personal
(41:05):
information to that limited list of the partner communities, and
then guess what happens. It is a race to see
who gets to you first. Your phone will explode, just
like the lady I spoke with earlier this week. Her
phone is still blowing up, just ringing off the hook, unbelievable.
We tour the communities with you. We ask a lot
(41:25):
of questions from the perspective of a nursing home administrator
or assistant living executive director. We ask really good questions
that most of our clients would not know to ask.
Some free referral services will tour facilities with you, but
not all of them. But you'll spend hours just returning
all of the calls you receive. And that's just the
beginning of your journey. I could go on and on
(41:49):
and on and on. If you want to know more
about that, go to Senior Care Consulting dot com and
then click on why choose us? All that information is there.
Here's the bottom line. If you want an objective consultant
that's not on the take, that works directly for you
and your family. If that sounds appealing to you, okay,
(42:12):
call Senior Care Consulting. We would love to talk for
you a free consultation. We'll have a very good phone
conversation with you. We'll see if it's a good fit
both ways nine one, three, nine four five twenty eight
hundred or online at Seniorcare Consulting dot com. All right,
I'm Steve Keeker, and I wish you grace and peace.
(42:32):
May God bless you and your family on this day
and always join me next week right here. But Senior
Care Live.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Does your business serve the elderly and their caregivers in
our area? There are hundreds of thousands of people either
receiving or providing senior care and they need to know
about you. A unique and successful radio program called Senior
Care Live is the perfect opportunity to let your target
audience know about your amazing products and services. Senior Care
(43:08):
Live is currently adding a limited number of partner sponsors,
and if you're aligned with their mission, they want to
talk to you. They're interested in partnering with hospital organizations,
physician groups, home care providers, a state planning and older
law practices, financial advisors, insurance companies, real estate brokers, home
health agencies, and other providers serving the elderly and their caregivers.
(43:32):
Senior Care Live has a limited number of partner sponsor opportunities,
so call now at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred or visit seniorcare live dot com seniorcare live
dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Quid pro quo a Latin phrase that means an exchange
of goods or services where one transfer is contingent upon
the other. Here's an example. I'll recommend your senior care
community if you'll pay me a huge kickback from my referral.
The free referral services have a vested interest in you
choosing one of their business partners. That's how they make
(44:10):
their money. Does this paid recommendation sound objective or credible?
Of course not. I'm Steve Keeker with Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so proud to say we have never received a
single penny from any provider ever. We offer a placement
service with integrity for help finding the right senior care community,
without conflict of interest and without the quid pro quo
(44:34):
called nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred
nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred Replacement
service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting dot com
Are you caring for an aging loved one? Are you
a senior searching for answers? Welcome to Senior Care Live,
a program dedicated to you, providing information, education and resources
for seniors and their caregivers. And now America's senior care consultant.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Steve Keecker. Hello and welcome to Senior Care Live. I'm
Steve Keeker. You're a senior care consultant and I really
appreciate you tuning in today. We have a wonderful program
on tap with my friend and special guest in studio.
He's mister Ben Sochek. He's the owner and operator of
Home Downsizing Solutions. Write this information down. You're going to
(00:45):
want to reach out to Bend. It may be tomorrow,
it may be in the near future, it may be
a year from now. You never know, but you're gonna
want to listen to Ben. But here's how you reach
out to him eight five five two nine one five
zero zero five where you can also go online at
home Downsizing dot com and Ben welcome back to Senior
(01:06):
Care Live.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Hi, Steve, thank you for having me on today and
as always, looked forward to talking to the listeners and
hopefully providing some great value and information for them today.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Absolutely. And you know you and I spoke right before
the program today. You were sharing a couple of stories
on and I'll let you tell the story, but essentially
what it was was you met with the homeowner, you
did all the evaluation, you made a really attractive and
fair offer to buy their house, you know, as is,
(01:37):
and then they they called you back, and that's where
the story gets interesting. And I guess I'll let you
take it from there.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Okay, thanks, Steve Yes met with a homeowner and he
had contacted a couple of different companies, Yeah, and spoke
to me, told me all about the house. I sent him
a proposal for the property and he called me and said, well,
you know, I have an offer that is the numbers
(02:06):
on it is more than what you're willing to pay.
Is are you willing to come up on your offer
or is there anything else that you can provide that
would provide more value than this other offer? And I
said no, I said, if you're comparing apples to apples,
and he's going to give you a net figure that
is higher than mine and accomplish the same thing, which
(02:28):
was letting him stay in the house for more than
thirty days and all the benefits that we offer. I said,
I'd probably take the other offer too, and so that
was kind of the end of the conversation for the
time being. And about four days later, though, he called
me back because one of the things is he wanted
to close within a few days but stay in the house,
or he wanted to close in a few days to
(02:49):
have the funds to buy a new house, but not
move until thirty or so days afterwards, which is a
common thing that we work with.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's a timing issue, correct.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And apparently the off the other offer that he thought
he had was not what he was told, and so
he decided to go with our offer because I could
give him the benefits that were of value that he
expected with that house sale.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
See, so that's interesting. So I tell this story all
the time that falls into the category squarely into the
category of over promise and under deliver. And so for
our audience, you know, some of these offers, some of
these services that sound fantastic, you have to wonder is
(03:42):
there a gotcha in there, or maybe it's just not
quite as attractive as it was sold or promoted. And
that's exactly what happened here.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
That's exactly what happened. Yes, and I'm not sure how
often that happens to people, But there certainly are companies
out there, like we've talked about Steve in the past,
that are what are called in the industry wholesalers that
if you look at their website, they state that they
buy houses. On the phone, they will tell you they
buy houses. If someone even comes to your house to
(04:14):
look at it, they will tell you that they're going
to buy your house. But if you look at the
paperwork closely, they sometimes have closing dates of twenty one
to thirty days from the time of signing the agreement.
Their mode of operation is that they want to get
their inspectors or contractors into the house before they close
to get quotes. But these so called quote unquote contractors
(04:38):
are actually potential buyers that they are hoping to flip
that contract to. And so if that's the case, I'm
not saying all the companies are like that, because they're not,
but there's certainly some of them out there that are.
And if you think the house is sold but it's
one of these wholesalers, it can leave you in a
very bad position.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, because they own the rights to that property for
a period of time. Whatever your contract says, that's great.
And so what you're saying is that, okay, hey, well
we'll buy your house. But in reality, now they're average,
they do not have the cash in hand by that house,
correct or they're not willing to do that. And so
all they're trying to do is then advertise your house
and then sell it to someone else, collect the proceeds,
(05:21):
and then pay you what the offer was. And if
they don't get that done, you're you were led down
a road that is not not so good.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
That's correct. And I've heard of situations where they will
either tell the homeowner you know, I didn't realize that
your house needed more work than what we thought it did,
and so they will try and negotiate a lower price
so that they can accomplish their their flip the flip
of the contract, or they'll just disappear and you won't
(05:52):
hear from them again. And or sometimes if the original
contract states that they have maybe nine days to accomplish
what they want to accomplish, and you as a seller realized,
you know, this is something that I didn't realize was happening.
I want to get out of the contract. Yeah, I've
heard of situations where this wholesaling company will sue the
(06:12):
homeowner to enforce their contract.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Not a good situation, Nope, So look, just avoid all
that and call Ben. The The individuals that I have
on my program, Senior Care Live are straight up trustworthy
individuals and trustworthy services. Ben is as great as it gets.
(06:38):
Ben is a veteran, veteran owned business. High top rating
from the Better Business Bureau. Ben in business for you know,
well over twenty years doing all of it? How long?
How many years?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Just went? Over? Twenty eight years?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Okay, okay, well all right, darn near thirty. So I'm
sure changing you on that. But yeah, so Ben knows
what he's doing. Okay, you can try us been. He's
going to make you an offer. If it looks great,
go for it. If if if you want to go
a different path, I mean, he might even recommend go
go go a different way. But here's the bottom line.
(07:11):
Give Ben a call. If you're thinking about selling your house,
you want to you want the convenience of downsizing and
just moving out of out of your house as is
and not leave all the all the stuff in the
house to bend the repairs and everything and walk away
from it. Eight five five two nine one five zero
zero five. That's toll free anywhere in the country. Eight
(07:31):
five five two nine one five zero zero five. And
he has an excellent website, Home downsizing dot com. And
then we were also talking about interest rates. A lot
of folks, I think, felt like maybe they were gonna
they were gonna start to fall, and maybe there's been
just a tiny bit of movement, but there's still like
around seven percent, aren't.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
They depending on where you're at, that's correct. The long
term thirty year mortgage rates are still around seven percent,
which is still making it expensive for a lot of
people to get into buying a home these days. That's
that's correct.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And you know, we all and maybe I remember, and
this has been a long time ago. It has been
you know, the late seventies. I remember twelve thirteen, you know,
eighteen percent, yeah, maybe even twenty So it was just
just crazy. So relative to that, seven doesn't seem so bad.
But we got spoiled rotten on you know, two and
a half three percent for a really long time. But
(08:25):
the bottom line is they're not coming down. But and
it's still a pretty good seller's market. We could use
some more inventory. But you mentioned that a lot of
these large corporations, for the first time maybe in a
long time, they're actually selling more of their inventory than
they're buying. So what effect does that have on the market.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
That's a story that I saw earlier this week Steve
that I believe in the first quarter, first half of
this year, there were more net sales from investors or
investment companies than there were purchases since I believe twenty
twenty one for that. And so again, this is very
locality dependent. Sure, sure, so in some areas you're not
(09:10):
they're not going to see the effects of this as
much as other areas. But you know, some of the areas,
even back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, parts of Florida
where a company would have fifteen thousand houses in that
one metro area and that was just one company back then,
even wow. And so depending on what these companies do,
(09:30):
they can really influence a local market if they decide
to liquidate or anything like that. And so what it's
going to do locally, you know here in Kansas City,
who knows. But just be aware that there are factors
out there that influence your housing market. You might not
that most people might not think about.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, and if they sell it a bunch of their houses,
it's going to flood the market with inventory. And now
you have a lot more supply, and maybe that exceeds
the demand, and all of a sudden, then the home
prices or the sales price is going to drive that
down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Potentially might come down and might make the seven percent
interest rates you know, more affordable to buy. So yeah again, Yeah,
it just depends on your local market.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Excellent reach out to ben so check it Home Downsizingsolutions
dot com or you can just tighten that up a
little bit Home Downsizing dot com eight five five two
nine one five zero zero five And now the Senior
Care Live Question of the Week. In reference to a
person's mortgage, the payoff is the same as your balance
(10:38):
do Is that statement true or false? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit Seniorcare Live dot com.
We'll have more with Steve coming up next. A recent
Internet search for nursing homes in Kansas City provided thirty
(11:06):
two million results. It's daunting to think that there are
over three hundred and fifty senior care communities to choose
from in the Kansas City metro and on average, you'll
spend fifty to one hundred hours trying to find.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
A place for your loved one.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
If this sounds overwhelming, that's because it is. I invite
you to reach out to Senior Care Consulting. We've been
serving family since two thousand and two. With our premium service,
we do most of the work for you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You'll spend just a.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Few hours of your time finding the best place available,
and you can trust us to be objective because we
don't receive reimbursement from any provider. We work for you.
To learn more, call Senior Care Consulting at nine three
nine four five twenty eight hundred nine nine four five
twenty eight hundred, a placement service with integrity at Seniorcare
(11:57):
Consulting dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, go to Senior
Care Live dot com. Now back to the Senior Care
Live question of the Week. In reference to a person's mortgage,
the payoff is the same as your balance. Do is
that statement true or false? And the answer is false,
(12:33):
The answer is false. And Ben, why is that statement false?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Well, Steve, when a person receives a monthly statement from
their mortgage company, they usually have a balance on there,
and of course that's the principal balance. But a payoff
is always going to be something a little bit different.
But especially in situations that I've run into in the
last couple of weeks, actually where and this might not
(13:02):
be an issue with your listeners near as much as
the general population, I guess I'll put it that way.
But in one situation, a person had been behind on
their mortgage back when, actually when COVID happened several years ago,
and during that time, they signed a what they thought
(13:26):
was a modification to their mortgage with the lender, and
it actually ended up being instead of a modification for
their primary loan, it was actually paperwork to create a
second loan. Oh boy, And they had really no idea
that they had even signed anything like this, And apparently
(13:46):
they're not. They weren't the only ones in this situation.
Our title company had heard of this happening numerous times
with a large nationwide lending company. Wow, so instead of
having a payoff amount for around one hundred and fifty thousand,
they actually had two loans that required about one hundred
(14:09):
and eighty or ninety thousand, which made the debt more
than the houses worth.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh mine, now they're upside down.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So they're upside down, which would have required a short
sale what's called a short sale in order to sell
that property. A second issue was a gentleman that I
mean anytime a person gets into not being able to
make mortgage payments as an unfortunate situation, but in this
especially was a health related issue that had been going
(14:37):
on now for about two years. And he also was
under the assumption that he owed about two hundred and
thirty thousand or so, and when we requested a payoff
from the lender because it had almost gone to a
foreclosure sale, he actually owed closer to two hundred and
eighty thousand.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh boy. So what happened was what made up that different?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
You have things like when a lender when a person
is not making the mortgage payments, then the lender has
the ability to make tax property tax payments to the
local municipality for tax payments. Okay, home insurance and back payments, back, interest,
legal fees. They there can be all kinds of different
(15:23):
things that a person doesn't think about.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Late fees and penalties and late fees.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
All of that stuff add up as well. And so
when a person thinks, okay, I don't owe you know,
I owe X, well, it can be a lot more
than X by the time you include all of those items.
And fortunately for him, even though he contacted us less
than a week before the forclosure sale, even though this
(15:50):
has been going on for two years now, the lender
was willing to stop and postpone the sale because we
showed him a purchase agreement that we were going to
our company was going to buy the house, and the
proof of funds that we could actually financially do that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
So that's another situation where a wholesaler probably does not
have a real proof of funds, but we could show
him something from the bank that we had the proof
of funds. So we're in the process of closing that right.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Now, okay. And then what that did was it saved
him from getting literally kicked out of his house because
of foreclosure. That's correct.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So because he was in the kind of a unique
situation that he still had equity in his house. But
he's able to We're able to buy that house, let
him stay there for a few months so that he
and his family can transition to a new home without
being pushed out of their current home.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yep, and just kind of start over with the cleed slate.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Just start that's correct, and at least have some money
in his pocket from the equity instead of some people. Understandably,
nobody wants to lose their home, but some people hang
onto that home for so long that they lose any
equity that they would have had and they're kind of
a slave to that house. Yeah, which is not a
(17:16):
good situation either. So at least he's able to get
out of the house, get a new home, and have
some money to start over with.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
If this is resonating with you, I know this is
turning some heads. I can feel it right through the
radio waves. Reach out to Ben Sochek. He knows what
he's doing. He may be able to help you, even
in a difficult situation like we just discussed with these
couple of clients here eight five, five, two nine one
five zero zero five. We're online at home downsizing dot
(17:49):
Com and home Downsizing Solutions is not one of these
I think there in my opinion, I think it's a
little bit shady to be potentially misrepresent yourself and say, oh,
you're going to buy it, and when you really have
no intention of buying that property. You're just trying to
find a buyer to buy that contract and then you
(18:12):
would just send them the net. So I don't like that.
So with Home Downsizing Solutions, you don't have to worry
about any of that stuff, any of that funny business.
Home Doownsizing dot Com eight five five two nine one
five zero zero five And Ben tell us about your book,
you have a really really helpful workbook that can help
(18:33):
people who are in that downsizing mode.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Correct one. I have the stress Free Home Downsizing book
that's available on Amazon, and I would love for your
listeners to go to Amazon buy a copy, and hopefully
you like it and give me a good review because
I could certainly utilize those on Amazon. Sure, but if
you would like a free copy of our stress free
(18:58):
home downsizing work book, you can just go to Home
Downsizing Solutions or Home Doownsizing dot Com. Go to the
resources tab. There's a number of free resources under that tab.
That you can download, and one of those is that
workbook that you can download, and I think it would
be a good resources, a good resource if you are
(19:20):
looking at selling a house and moving to a smaller home, apartment,
or other type of senior living community.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And I'll tell you what. We've talked about this before,
but I've spoken with so many people, and you've spoken
with way more than I have. But most people, that's
the hardest part of moving is oh my gosh, what
do I do with all this stuff? And what can
I take with me? What do I need to sell, donate,
throw away, et cetera, et cetera. And this workbook would
(19:50):
help you work through all of that.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
That's correct. I think it really is not that it's
just me talking about my resource here, but I've been
told by other people that it's a really good re
if you are in that process. Because yes, I've talked
to a lot of people that want to downsize or
they know that they really need to downsize, but they
just have no idea where to start. And so this
(20:12):
can certainly start a person with that process.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So you go to home doownsizing dot com and then
go to the resources and then find What's what's that
workbook called again.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
The stress Free Home Downsizing Workbook?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
All right? Ben Socheck with Home Downsizing Solutions eight five, five,
two nine one five zero zero five were online at
home Doownsizing dot com and Ben, thanks so much for
coming in today. Excellent as always.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Thank you Steve for having me.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Have a great day.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
All right, we'll have more coming right up.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. Have a question. This is Seniorcare Live dot Com.
Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Hello, this is Steve Keeker, President of Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so excited to announce that we are expanding nationwide
by awarding Senior care Consulting franchises. We help our clients
find the right senior care community, including assistant living, memory care,
long term care, and continuing care retirement communities. We are
(21:23):
not another run of the mill, free referral service. We're
very different. We offer replacement service with integrity. Owning a
senior care consulting franchise offers many benefits. Our market is
not affected by the economy. Operate from your home office
and enjoy work life balance, pour your passion into a
business you can be proud of. For more information about
(21:46):
owning a Senior care consulting franchise, call eight three three
seven two two three seven two six eight three three
seven two two three seven two six or visit Senior
Care Consulting Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live
(22:11):
on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts to the program,
visit Seniorcare Live dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, So, earlier this week I had a really
interesting conversation with a super nice lady. She said, Hey,
we listened to you on the radio, and we've listened
(22:33):
to you for years, and now the time has come.
We we believe that we need your service. So she
was going through and explaining their whole situation and uh,
and it was it was complex, but this is what
you know we at Senior Care Consulting, I mean, we
work with these these different situations every single day. And
(22:57):
then she started it spawned all kinds of questions, as
it always does. So I was explaining all of the
details that are relevant to her situation and her needs,
and I was providing a tremendous amount of information. Just
just did a phone conversation over the phone like I
(23:19):
always do. And then she stopped, and then she just
blurted out, wait, wait a minute. The other place I called,
they didn't tell me anything about any of this. And
I'm like, oh boy, you talk to somebody else. Also,
she goes, well, yeah, yeah, I did. And what happened
(23:43):
was she had called one of these free referral services.
Free is a powerful word, folks. I'm going to talk
you out of that here just a second. I'm going
to make my point very loudly and clearly. Ever since
she signed up or just just did a basic inquiry
from the quote unquote referral service, her phone has just
been exploding with I don't know how many dozens and
(24:06):
dozens of calls in a short period of time from
very aggressive salespeople. This is what happens when you do that,
you touch their website, they do even if you don't
fill out a form, they do data mining and they
go back to your IP address, which tells them your name,
your phone number, your address, all of your information. They
can go backwards and contact you that way. God forbid
(24:29):
if you fill out a form, if you fell out
a form you are theirs that is sent out to
all kinds of their business partners who are then trying
to get to you first to make their sale. This
is the kind of stuff that you get, folks. It's
not free at all, by the way. I'll explain that
in a minute. And I said. She was just perplexed.
She's like, well, wait, wait a minute, you're getting into
(24:52):
all sorts of things that I mean, I really appreciate
it too, by the way, I had no idea how
this works and how that works and all these things.
She said, this is a lot more of a complex
situation than I thought. And you have really opened my eyes.
They didn't say a single word about any of that,
(25:14):
and I just started laughing and I said, well, ma'am,
of course not. Of course they didn't. And then she said,
well why, And I said, ma'am, I'm a real consultant.
They're just trying to make a sale. They're going to
tell you just enough to get you just interested enough
(25:40):
to choose one of their contracted business providers. So they
don't really have an incentive to educate you on all
the things that I just reviewed with you simple conversation
over the phone. They just need you to choose one
of their contracted facility so that they can receive their
(26:05):
several thousand dollars kickback. That's all they need. So if
they spend all this time talking to you about all
these other things, it doesn't really benefit them. So they're
going to spend the least amount of time with you
and tell you just enough to get you interested in
(26:25):
one of their partner providers. You choose that partner provider,
you move in. What they've done was a they accomplished
their goal of increasing the occupancy for their business partner,
and b once you move in, that business partner strokes
them a check for thousands and several thousand dollars. That's
(26:46):
how it works. It's not free at all, not free
at all. So I just thought that was interesting. I said, ma'am,
I'm an actually, I'm an actual consultant. I educate you
on stuff. They're just trying to make a sale. Such
a stark, stark difference. So I'm working with just this
(27:09):
wonderful fella and he's pretty heartbroken. He can no longer
care for his wife, who has Alzheimer's. He's done a
great job for her, but everyone has their limits and
he's approaching his and he knows it. And so we're
in the middle of, you know, conducting our research, trying
(27:31):
to identify our top options. And I checked out one
place that was kind of within the location parameters, and
I was just shocked at what I ran into. And
so this would be at the long term care level,
and this is some of what you get with an
actual consultant at senior care consulting. We don't just just
(27:54):
recommend places on our list that are going to give
us our kickback. Okay, we researched the entire marketplace and
I had I had one I had one client one
time he said something that it's always stuck with me.
He says, Steve, along with you knowing the best the
(28:14):
best options available for us, he said, what is just
as important, maybe more important, is you know the places
to not go. And I said, you you got that right.
I know exactly where we're not going, so and that
is important. That is important. Okay, So I stumble into
this one and I just started doing the research to
(28:37):
figure out our top options. This one is definitely did
not make the list. And I looked at the penalties
that they have been charged in the last three years,
and I see that a couple of years ago they
had they received a penalty from the government of one
hundred and thirty one thousand dollars. Wow, that is a huge,
(29:01):
huge penalty. So when when when you when you're running
one of these places, and then if you're going along,
and then about every year or so plus or minus,
state representatives will come in unannounced and do an audit,
a survey, okay, and if they find any issues, then
(29:23):
they will write a citation is called a deficiency. And
if it's a really bad situation, they can find you
and if it's really bad, they can deny government payments
to you or your facility until you get that fixed
and cleaned up. So along with this one hundred, this
(29:44):
whopping one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars penalty, they
also had to denial a payment from Medicare and Medicaid
until you get that cleaned up and fixed. That's a major,
severe penalty. And then I run into a larger penalty
that happened this year, two hundred and seventy thousand dollars
(30:06):
penalty and another denial of payment. I about fell out
of my chair. I have never seen a federal fine
as large as that, not even close. One hundred and
thirty one is a whopper, but twice as much two
hundred and seventy thousand dollars fine. So I'm like, all right, well,
(30:30):
so now I need to know what happened. So then
I go into another part of my research. I find
out that in the most recent surprise health inspection, they
had nineteen deficiencies, and the average for this state is twelve. Okay,
so they're way above average. And then I look at
(30:54):
the number of complaints in the last three years that
resulted in a citation or a deficiency. Sixty complaints in
the last three years. Sixty. I'm like, you got to
be kidding me, Oh my gosh, what's going on? So
(31:14):
then I continue with more nine quality of life and
quality of care deficiencies. Right, we have abuse and neglect deficiencies,
we have resident right deficiencies, pharmaceutical deficiencies. It just goes
on and on and on and on and on. So
you go through here and here is a J level
(31:37):
deficiency that is as high as it gets. That means
that a person's health and well being is in immediate jeopardy.
You never want to see a J, and you could
have a K and an L. You know, that's pretty rare.
But if you're going to have this high level, it's
usually two involves one person, maybe a couple, usually one
(31:57):
some incident with one resident. Here's a second JAY level
deficiency and it goes through and you can read. I'm
not going to read all of this stuff, but I'm
literally doing this live. Let me go back that couple
of years where they had that one hundred and thirty
one thousand dollars fine thirty one deficiencies during that one
(32:18):
survey or audit, and again the average for that state
at that time was ten. Okay, So here's here's a
question to ask yourself. Is that a place that you
would ever take your loved one? That's the question. Think
about it and I'll have more in just a moment.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or a guest of his show,
this is Seniorcare Live dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
We'll have more coming up. So you've been living into
Pendle at home, but now it's not working out. It's
time to begin searching for a senior care community. But
with hundreds of independent living, assisted living, long term care
(33:10):
and memory care options. How are you supposed to determine
the best place for you? Hello, I'm Steve Keeker, and
this is exactly why I created my firm, Senior Care Consulting.
I help my own grandparents through this difficult process, so
I know how overwhelming this can be. Our business model
ensures credibility and objectivity. We work directly for you and
(33:33):
we never receive reimbursement from any provider. We've helped hundreds
of family since two thousand and two, and we can
help you and your family as well. Call today for
a free consultation at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred. Nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred a placement service with integrity at Seniorcareconsulting dot com.
(34:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit seniorcare Live
dot com. All right, So back to my question. Is
that place that have that's had sixty complaints over the
last three years that resulted in a deficiency. Is that
(34:26):
a place you would ever take your mother, your father,
your spouse, your loved one. Most people would say no,
having one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars fine, knowing
that is a huge, gigantic whopper of a fine, then
followed up by a two hundred and seventy thousand dollars fine.
I've never seen anything close to that. Is that a
(34:49):
place you would ever take your loved one? Most people
would say no, and maybe even hell no, right, no way,
there's no way. But I got a question for you.
What if that free referral service frees such a powerful word,
(35:10):
so attractive, it's really you get what you pay for, folks.
What if that free referral service what if they're on
their list? What if that place is on their list?
And what if you're like, oh, well, I mean I'm
trusting them. I mean it's on their list, and so
oh yeah, well let's just go to that. Because you
(35:32):
weren't told any of this. Remember what the lady said, Well,
you've you've shared so much information. They didn't tell me
any of that information. Nope, they tell you just enough
to make the sale. They're not incentivized to do anything
different than that for this particular free referral service. There
(35:52):
are a few of them like that. What if this
place with one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars fine,
followed up by a two hundred and seventy thousand dollars
fine denial of payments and admission admissions bands. What if
(36:13):
that place is on their list sixty complaints over the
last three years, sixty Are you kidding me? What if
it's on their list? And what if you just unsuspectingly
choose that one because they didn't share any of that
stuff with you, any of that information. What if? That's
(36:37):
why I gladly differentiated myself with this very nice lady
who is going to use our service, by the way,
to help with her situation, in her need and her family.
That's why I said, ma'am, I'm a real consultant, I am,
how about that? They're just trying to make a sale.
(37:00):
And she said, it's all so clear to me now.
I had no idea. I had no idea. So let's
take just a few minutes to compare my firm, Senior
Care Consulting with the free referral services. And I always
have to put up my air quotes free referral service,
(37:21):
They're not free. They're not free at all, not not
even remotely close. They are absolutely not free in any way.
They get paid big time money to convince you to
choose a place on the list. You know, there's one
of these free referral services and on their website they're bragging, Oh, look,
(37:45):
we have agreements with you know, a certain number of
senior care providers throughout the country blah blah blah. And
I did some quick math and they represent less than
twenty percent of the market, less than twenty percent of
the options available. Oh that's exciting, isn't it. So with
(38:08):
a real consultant, the real consultant will explore all of
your options in the market, not twenty percent or eighteen percent,
whatever the number is. How about that senior care consulting.
We work directly for you, We represent you and your family.
The free referral services represent an incomplete list, maybe even
(38:31):
less than twenty percent of area facilities. They refer to
them as their partner communities. They're free to you because
they receive large commissions if you choose one of their
recommended partner communities. That's exciting, isn't it. They are incentivized
to recommend the places they have a contract agreement with.
(38:55):
Some would call that a conflict of interest. This is
why I have trademarked with my firm, Senior Care Consulting.
I've trademarked the phrase a placement service with integrity. We
don't receive a single penny, never have, never will. And look,
I've been offered the Moon. I have been offered so
(39:18):
much money and airfare for my wife and I to Hawaii.
That's thousands of dollars season tickets to the Chiefs. Are
you kidding me? You can't get those anymore? They're worth
so I don't know how much do it work? Now,
it's a ridiculous amount of money. One lady had a
stack of brand new Crispy one hundred dollars bills on
(39:41):
her desk saying I could buy more toys for my
kids that Christmas. Now that one made me mad. I said,
are you kidding me? You're dragging my kids into your bribery.
Shame on you, Shame on you. Fortunately she retired right
after that and I don't have to deal with her anymore.
But anyway, it's it's unbelievable, folks. A placement service with
(40:02):
integrity is what we offer Senior Care Consulting. Our job
is to help you make critical decisions. Their job is
to generate revenue by helping to increase the occupancy and
census of their partner communities. We don't. We don't accept
reimbursement from any care provider. Ever, they're typically paid eighty
(40:23):
ninety up to one hundred percent of the first month's
cost by their contracted partner communities. Again, conflict of interest.
I think it's a gross conflict of interest. We research
the entire marketplace to find the best place for your
unique situation. These other places primarily recommend a limited number
(40:44):
of their partner communities. You get how this is going right?
When researching the market we do not provide your personal information,
acting as a filter so that you're not contacted by
any sales representatives. We represent you the point of contact.
Not all, but some free referral services forward your personal
(41:05):
information to that limited list of the partner communities, and
then guess what happens. It is a race to see
who gets to you first. Your phone will explode, just
like the lady I spoke with earlier this week. Her
phone is still blowing up, just ringing off the hook, unbelievable.
We tour the communities with you. We ask a lot
(41:25):
of questions from the perspective of a nursing home administrator
or assistant living executive director. We ask really good questions
that most of our clients would not know to ask.
Some free referral services will tour facilities with you, but
not all of them. But you'll spend hours just returning
all of the calls you receive. And that's just the
beginning of your journey. I could go on and on
(41:49):
and on and on. If you want to know more
about that, go to Senior Care Consulting dot com and
then click on why choose us? All that information is there.
Here's the bottom line. If you want an objective consultant
that's not on the take, that works directly for you
and your family. If that sounds appealing to you, okay,
(42:12):
call Senior Care Consulting. We would love to talk for
you a free consultation. We'll have a very good phone
conversation with you. We'll see if it's a good fit
both ways nine one, three, nine four five twenty eight
hundred or online at Seniorcare Consulting dot com. All right,
I'm Steve Keeker, and I wish you grace and peace.
(42:32):
May God bless you and your family on this day
and always join me next week right here. But Senior
Care Live.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Does your business serve the elderly and their caregivers in
our area? There are hundreds of thousands of people either
receiving or providing senior care and they need to know
about you. A unique and successful radio program called Senior
Care Live is the perfect opportunity to let your target
audience know about your amazing products and services. Senior Care
(43:08):
Live is currently adding a limited number of partner sponsors,
and if you're aligned with their mission, they want to
talk to you. They're interested in partnering with hospital organizations,
physician groups, home care providers, a state planning and older
law practices, financial advisors, insurance companies, real estate brokers, home
health agencies, and other providers serving the elderly and their caregivers.
(43:32):
Senior Care Live has a limited number of partner sponsor opportunities,
so call now at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred or visit seniorcare live dot com seniorcare live
dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Quid pro quo a Latin phrase that means an exchange
of goods or services where one transfer is contingent upon
the other. Here's an example. I'll recommend your senior care
community if you'll pay me a huge kickback from my referral.
The free referral services have a vested interest in you
choosing one of their business partners. That's how they make
(44:10):
their money. Does this paid recommendation sound objective or credible?
Of course not. I'm Steve Keeker with Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so proud to say we have never received a
single penny from any provider ever. We offer a placement
service with integrity for help finding the right senior care community,
without conflict of interest and without the quid pro quo
(44:34):
called nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred
nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred Replacement
service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting dot com
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