#197: Fix and Flip Mom’s House with Phillip Vincent

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Josh: So, hey, welcome back to another episode of Accelerated Investor. Today, I’ve invited back my friend Phillip Vincent. If you remember, Phil was on the Accelerated Investor podcast episode 151, which we released back in October of 2020. Phil is an expert at working with families who are transitioning. Mom could be dad, but primarily mom out of their forever home into assisted living. And Phil has a nationwide investor network of investors who are getting motivated seller leads from these moms, these families who need to sell their forever home to unlock the dollars, to be able to pay for residential assisted living, assisted living memory, care, those types of things. And so, Phil, in this interview is going to describe, number one, the updates that have happened to this community during the pandemic. Number two, he’s going to describe the ten different lead sources of ways to get leads to mom, who might be 60, 70, 80 years old and needs to sell their home to unlock the equity to pay for her care. He’s also going to describe his investor lead network. 

Josh: And Phil told me off camera that just yesterday they got thirty-six leads from families all over the country who are looking to sell mom’s forever home. And Phil needs investor partners to work with who can work those leads, buy those properties and partner with Phil. He also has number four. He also has a live event coming up here shortly to describe his strategy and work with investors to create partnerships. So I really think you’re going to love this episode. An update with Philip Vincent from Mom’s House Dotcom. Also, don’t forget to check out the original episode, number 151 on Accelerated Investor. So here we go. 

Josh: So, hey, Phil, listen, I’m so excited to have you back on Accelerated Investor, it’s been about six months. Thanks for coming back on. How are things? How is business? 

Phillip: Josh, thank you for having me on. Business is good. We’re starting to grow our nationwide lead store, which is kind of exciting. So I’m excited to be here today and I appreciate you having me on. I hope to give a lot of value to your listeners today. 

Josh: Nice. Yes. For those of you that that don’t know, Phil Vincent, he is an expert at buying homes from seniors who are moving to the next chapter of their lives or moving into potentially assisted living or potentially memory care or some sort of residential assisted living. Or maybe they’re moving in with their kids or grandkids and they need to kind of sell mom’s house. And so Phil was on about six months ago on the Accelerated Investor podcast. It was episode number one fifty-one. So if you missed that episode, make sure you go back and listen to it. But Phil talked about his specific strategy for how he’s able to really fill his funnel of residential investment leads for wholesaling, for rentals, for rehabbing, and specifically focusing on focusing on the seniors that are transitioning out of their personal home into the next chapter of their life. So, Phil, real quick, brief introduction, but just expand on that and how you’ve built your business based on that strategy. So everybody has a foundation. And then really what I want to focus on is kind of an update like what have you seen during the pandemic? So give our listeners a foundation of your business and how you’ve built such a successful business working with seniors. 

Phillip: Josh, I love the way you just describe it, because it was perfectly apt. That’s exactly what I do. I love it that you you’ve got exactly what I do. These families, that moment they’re moving their mom into senior living mom or dad is the flash point for the families needing to sell their house. So I’ve been a real estate investor for twenty two years. I will not bore you guys with that story. But back in 2011, we were saying, you know, it’s really expensive to buy leads all the time, right? If you’re in the market, we think we’re in the real estate business, but we’re really in the marketing business. And so we had this mandate for every deal we were going to do what wasn’t really Facebook back then. But every deal we paid for, for marketing, direct mail, paper, click, all these things we wanted to do one via networking. And so when you start networking, you’re going to come across realtors, wholesalers. And then I discovered the senior living world. And the reason why is I love stereotypes. The stereotype of my seller is dad died eight years ago. Mom’s been doing the best she can. She fell down. She has to move into senior living the adult child. I call her daughter Judy. I used to call our daughter Karen, but the word Karen had a rough year. And so we don’t call her that anymore. We call her daughter, Judy, although. No. 

Phillip: Is there still our daughter Karen out there? She’s the sister who lives four hundred miles away, who’s very opinionated, who judges everything that Judy does. But that’s a whole different story. So I had this mandate to go out and I said, well, wait a second, is anybody talking to the senior living world? And the answer is no. And I said I took it upon myself to go do that. And what I found is I’ve got a big personality, how I talk as an investor and how the senior living world, they can’t be more far apart. Right. So I had to learn how to bridge that gap, how to tone it down a lot to be able to build the trust, know what to say, because what I found is they’re the perfect lead. And there’s five reasons I would say I’ll take the Pepsi Challenge with any other type of leaves. Source for five reasons. These families need to sell the house versus want to sell it. So it’s true motivation. I don’t have to convince them of motivation. They almost always have one hundred percent equity. They own the house outright, have since nineteen ninety, whatever number three is, even if it’s a clean house, which a lot of times it is, it’s still full of fifty years of life, fifty years of stuff. And the family doesn’t want to clean it all out because it’s really there’s not much value there. People memories are value but not true monetary value. Right. 

Phillip:Plus the average child is four hundred miles away. So it’s a house I can add value to any dated home us as investors. We’re not buying houses built in the year twenty nineteen a lot. Right. They’re always houses built long ago that haven’t been necessarily updated to today’s standard. So it’s a house I can add value to. The fourth thing is that there’s less competition on these houses because it’s usually me versus the realtor, not me, on a cattle call with ten other investors, like most of my other leads that we’re. By the way, you pay all that money for these phones during, but then for your troubles, you get to compete with ten other guys. With this, there’s less because it’s usually me versus a realtor and my value prop is better for the families. And then the fifth reason, like Joshua if me and you went to Albuquerque today, we’d probably throw it on Facebook. Hey, where’s the best place to eat in Albuquerque? Well, why do we do that as humans? Right. We want the advice of somebody we know can freeze. Yeah. And that’s a meal, right. In Albuquerque. IfJosh and Philip are brothers and we’re getting advice from somebody in senior living that we’re already trust with our moms end of life care. And that person says, hey, call Fred. He’s the most trusted buyer in town. Game over. Right, I mean, those five reasons make these the most slam dunk best leads.

Phillip: And so I set out back in 2011 to try to break into this industry, beat my head against the wall. I put my foot in my mouth every day, fortunately I’m stubborn enough to keep going back. And I kept learning what to say a couple and what not to say. I think that’s just as important. People hear what I do and they’re probably in their car right now. They’re going, OK, I’ll just walk into the front door and put my hand out and say, I’m Bob and I buy houses and I’m a realtor. And I was like, Oh, you’re good luck with that. You just blacklisted yourself in an industry you’re trying to get into. And so I went out and I kept going back and I started building relationships. And then the leads as they started to come in with these relationships, they’ve now snowballed to a point where I don’t spend any money anymore on outbound marketing. All my deals come directly to me through this channel. That’s fantastic. It is. And so you ask the question about how has it affected this? Even though the world has a pandemic, people didn’t stop getting old in the United States. So in March, you know, the occupancy, the amount of people went down more like a U shape. But what happened is and this is kind of you know, there’s a lot of sadness in what I do. Right. We’re talking about the end-of-life care. What people did was they might have moved their parents into their own house during the pandemic or they might not have gotten them to that best level of care. You put your parents in senior living, twenty-four-hour care because we as baby boomers or adult children don’t have the capacity to give our parents twenty-four-hour care. 

Phillip:So all I did was kind of delayed the process, you know. And so back by the end of the year, by October, November, those things kind of came right back. And so if you look at the total year, it was about a six percent dip, which is, you know, it represents a lot of money and six percent dip. But the industry had to come back because you can’t take that. You can’t put the toothpaste back into the bottle. Yeah, I can’t see it here. Right. And so it’s kind of I think where the shift has been is that families are starting to look at the big two hundred and eighty bed, I would say the prettiest chandelier, instead of putting mom in the prettiest chandelier, which a lot of times we do that for our own guilt. They’ve started to look at smaller R-AL, residential assisted living communities like Pigman from a house and put her into another house versus into a what would you call it a, I hate the word facility. It’s more like something a big box. And so maybe that shift is happening more from an industry perspective, but it doesn’t mean us as investors. It’s still that moment they need to sell where their mom ends up in a little house or a big house. The point is, is an investor. That house still needs to be sold to pay for that care.

Josh:So I know you’re doing a live training of that coming up, and so give me some insight. What specifically would somebody learn at that three-day event, like give our listeners here some free, some free stuff that a lot of people pay for if they come to that event there. Obviously, you get a lot more than what we could give them here in 15 minutes. But what is a couple of specifics that maybe somebody could take away from this interview and say, wow, that’s something I can implement my business tomorrow, that you will be covering more in depth at your event? 

Phillip: Sure. I’d be happy to do so over the three days. It’s a really deep dive into the three people we help. And the three things are this. The industry has a problem. Here’s one hundred thousand dollars. I’ll give to your listeners right now. It’s do you ever have a situation where they want to move mom in but they can’t until they get the house sold? That little sentence right there is magic because what that did is that just unlocked their brain to say, yeah, in fact, that answer is usually a laughter like fill every day. I have to deal with that. And I’m like, exactly, I fix that problem. I didn’t start off by saying I’m an investor, I’m a realtor. Right. So the industry, the average client stays with him or family member, whatever you want to call it, that stays with him. Twenty-eight months, that’s the industry average. So that’s built in, baked in. 

Phillip: What happens on the front end, though, is that they’re looking for any way to get that loved one in quicker. And sometimes the catalyst to get Mom in is the sale of the house. So that way they know where the money is coming from because Phillip and Josh are brothers again. And we take mom to the shiniest chandelier and we find out it’s eight grand a month and she’ll have the twenty-eight hundred dollars a month pension. We’re like, is Philip and Josh paying the five grand a month? Right. And families do. Sometimes I’m like, Josh, you’re way better off than me. So you’re paying it and you know, and when the household will pay you back and win and win and win. So the industry, the senior living industry has a problem that they want mom to have a bag full of money in her pocket, not a house that’s causing the family stress. 

Josh:So when you’re using this language that you brought up, you’re talking specifically about saying that to the director of that residential assisted living facility or that big box facility or memory care facility. So you’re going and visiting those places, calling them or know, OK, tell me about that. 

Phillip: No, and that’s kind of what I was saying. There was about ten different people we go a deep dove into from the proprietor all the way to a social worker and everywhere in between. And so there’s a few hundred jobs in senior living. And I found the top I would say ten that have been fruitful for me over the past decade. And so none of this is done on site. None of this is done where they’re working. 

Josh: You can’t even get into those facilities now anyway. 

Phillip: Because I know they shouldn’t. If they walk in the front door, they’re going to be in trouble. So that was by the way, I never thought that even pre pandemic, it was never cold calling walking in the front door. That was not how it’s done. 

Josh:So you said there were ten of these times, these top ten sort of positions within that senior assisted living type of. What are some of those? What are the names of some of those job titles? 

Phillip: In the industry? I would say four of them are in the communities and the other are ancillary vendors outside of the community. So you’ve got the proprietor. You’ve got the director, you’ve got the finance director. You’ve got the marketing person. You’ve got the social worker. Those are the ones that usually exist inside. Then outside of that, you’ve got the downsizing expert, the placement agents. There are some of my favorite there, like real estate agents for the senior living world. You’ve got elder care attorneys and you’ve got people to do what’s called aid and attendance benefits, providing like, well, what the heck does that mean? Well, it’s like this thing we’ve never even heard of. So what usually happens is dad served in a war. And which means mom is now eligible for that aid and attendance benefit, but nobody knows that until they need it or they’re told about it, right. The government’s not out there saying, hey, we’ve got free money for your care. 

Phillip: You have to have someone in your camp that’s helping you. So with that person that’s getting your aid and attendance benefit paid out, it’s because you’re moving mom into senior living. And so we go through each one of those 10. The proprietor is the most like an investor. You can have a money conversation with him or her. The social worker is the exact opposite. So I’ve got scripts for all 10 because you don’t talk to the social worker anyway, that you talk to the proprietor, the social worker. And really, most of them are all about care. They’re not about the money. Only the finance director and the proprietor would actually have a money conversation with them because all the other ones, it’s care, care, care, care and can be trusted, trusted. 

Josh: But all of them understand the mechanics and the economics a lot of times is that the adult children need to unlock the dollars from the home in order to pay for mom’s care. Because like you said, I mean, it could be anywhere from five to eight thousand a month. And she’s on a fixed income and can’t really necessarily afford the difference. And sure, the kids might have some cash, but do they really want to spend four thousand or three thousand a month out of their own pocket? Or can they unlock the equity in mom’s house first? And then ultimately, if that money is even spent down by selling the home, that mom can qualify for Medicaid? That’s what happened to my grandmother. And she went into a Medicaid type facility, which was a great spot for her based on her situation. Because, you know, my grandfather died at fifty four. My grandmother lived till eighty-four. So she was alone for thirty years on a fixed income on Social Security. And that’s exactly what happened is what you’re describing is my father passed. Has he since has passed away in November. 

Josh:So we had a very similar situation with him. But my grandmother, who passed away about 15 years ago, she had just her home was her main and almost only asset and had to sell that in order to put her into what she originally moved in with my parents, then moved to assisted living, then moved to memory care right through the continuum. And it was then ultimately in the hospice at the end. So she had kind of all the different kind of stopping points, if you will, in that adult kind of care. And for sure, my grandmother, as she was an ordinary like four foot 11, you know, little Irishwoman, she’s someone like if you feel or I had talked to her, called on her or called on my father and gotten in touch with them and said, hey, you know, what is I’m going to do to sell the home to pay for this care type of thing? She went out and sold the house herself. You know, she was still like an ornery, angry was going to do it on her own. She did it knowing that she was going to move in with my parents. But most of the time, that doesn’t happen right, where Mom’s just going to go make that decision on her own. She’s going to consult with the realtor. She’s going to consult with a real estate investor like us, consult with her adult children. 

Josh: And so getting into those kind of situations. Now Phil, what I’m interested to hear, as you probably talk to a lot of your students, a lot of your people in your community who are looking at this strategy. And now we’re hearing so much about the MLS or so much about motivated sellers. There’s no inventory. There’s so much competition because there’s no inventory. Prices are going up. There’s ten other buyers at every door. And so the value prop that you’re giving is, look, we’re going to focus on this community who’s going to be a motivated seller versus. So help me understand the kind of epiphany that your students are experiencing when you’re like, oh, my God, this is working. Why am I doing what? Why have I been doing this all the time versus fighting over all these other leads, you know, like baking house leads or out of town landlord leads? 

Phillip: Yep. Great question. And so let’s talk about daughter. Judy for a second. Right. Daughter Judy is the one that’s closest to mom that’s been helping out with all the problems. And so Daughter Judy is getting do you ever hear the term being quartered where the horse is pulling in different directions daughter Judy, she’s being quartered. So she just moving. You said that where she just you just moved on, Mom, into senior living. She still has made your being pulled that way. You are the community needs their money and all the paperwork filled out your being pulled that way. You’ve got the sisters and brothers that live on average. Listen to the four hundred miles away that that question everything you’re doing. And usually daughter Judy is still married to somebody that’s needy and has her life. Didn’t stop just because this happened. Right. So they’re being pulled for different directions. 

Phillip: And so to answer your question, why would somebody do this when the market’s good? Here’s why. When the realtor walks in, remember? OK, so the doctor said mom has to move out of her forever home in. A singer living, that’s Ardeo Blow, second thing, it’s how much a month, second below. Third thing, it’s you. You want me to clean this place out and rehab it? Before I listed, you said, Josh, the market is as good as it’s ever been. I’ve been real estate 22 years. It’s the best retail market I’ve ever seen. What doesn’t happen is and we’re forgetting the front part, these houses are not anywhere close to retail ready and they’re usually full of stuff. So when you live on average four hundred miles away, what happens is they come in day one, they take the heirlooms. Heirlooms leave in 10 minutes like the valuable stuff is gone. And what’s left after that is I can say crap. It’s crap. 

Josh: Yes, junk. But it’s the stuff Mom really doesn’t want to let go of either. 

Phillip: No. Oh, it’s. Oh, my gosh. It’s so emotional. Right. And so forth. Adult children, they all have to fly into town. They all have to pick out their heirlooms and then they decide, I love to catch a family on weekend number three when they’re taking stuff out of the basement and taking it to the dumpster. They were like, what are we doing? And if I can catch them early, I let them know that they don’t have to do that. So even though the retail market’s good, here’s what’s not good. You’re in the business. How easy is it to find competent contractors right now? 

Josh: Yeah, they’re busy. They’re busy. 

Phillip: And the good ones, are they charging you a lot? A little bit. Are they charging you more than they used to? 

Josh: Or if they’re good, they know their value. They’re charging a premium for sure. 

Phillip: Right. So I think the focus has just shifted, right? Yes. The retail market is good, but I think how to get to the retail sale has gotten harder because the market so good. And these families who already live at it, remember, this is not their own house. This is mom’s house in a moment where they need money. So who the heck is going to pay the rest ? You, Josh, we’re going. Who’s paying five grand a month? Well, who’s throwing forty fifty grand into Mom’s house to rehab it? Because that’s what the realtor said we need to do to get that Zillow number. 

Josh: Yeah. And then hopefully and you’ve got to wait till it sells to get your money back and then hopefully not fight with your brother and your sister-in-law over the forty-five thousand that you put into the house when all the proceeds come. Right. I’ve heard those stories one hundred times, 

Phillip: Josh, they’re arguing over who gets the crock pot, the skillet. They’re arguing over who gets mom’s skillet. I think they’re going to argue over the rehab. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. One of my favorite questions is what color kitchen are you going to install in this house? And they’re like, what? I might know what color kitchen you’re going to put here. What do you mean? Like when you said you might rehab it instead of sell it to me. What color kitchen are you going to put here? It just shows no one’s ready. They don’t, no one really wants to rehab it. By the way, just if these family wanted to do an TV show on this house, that lead would never came to me. They would have just did it right. For them to get into my web means that these families don’t want to get, nobody wants to get the house cleaned out. Nobody wants to get the house retail ready. Nobody. 

Phillip: And if they do, they’re probably going in different directions anyway. I’m telling you, today’s adult children, with their lives so busy and all this other stuff they’re helping their mom with, they love the mom’s house. Easy button because they don’t have to you know, we still treat people fair. We you know, this is all aboveboard. In fact, that’s probably one of my biggest problems, is that I can’t just have any investor in every city. Yeah. They really have to go through this training with me to understand all the nuance of what’s going on with these families. And I need good investors nationwide. So that’s like my takeaway. It’s like this is worth your time, because if you do it right, you can have referring these ten different people who refer to their business, they’re going to use you as a tool from now on if you can gain their trust. And that’s will valuable. This could be 

Josh:So sort of last question, guys, I encourage all of you to go to momhouse.com/threeday, that’s Phil’s website if you want more information about his home study course. And he’s putting out a three day live event. And we’re always looking for strategies that can set our investors, our community aside. So I’m happy to introduce Phil to all of you guys on Accelerated Investor and find these new ways, these better ways to find motivated seller leads. So check that out. Mom’s house dot com slash three day. So last question is, I’m interested to hear about the exit strategy, because I think what I would do right is you have this property off market. You’re getting at some sort of discount, even if you’re not getting it at a massive discount. You know that whatever goes on the MLS right now is selling for over market value. There’s multiple bids. 

Josh:So help me understand your favorite exit strategy, because mine probably would be buy the house as an investor with private money, kind of pre hab it clean it out, clean it up, maybe paint and carpet, maybe some sort of small cosmetic, maybe 10 grand, five grand, then put it on the MLS. You know, you don’t have to redo the cabinets. You don’t have to do the old bathroom, you know, those kinds of things. But maybe get rid of the old musty carpet, maybe get rid of the paneling or paint the paneling that’s in the living room from nineteen eighty-eight and clean everything out. So it looks like a really clean property. Then throw it on the MLS and let people fight for it. That’s probably what I would do. What are your thoughts on that?

Phillip: What we call it. Knocking the ugly off of it and then wholetailing it. There you go. That’s it. That’s what you describe. It’s a great strategy right now. People don’t they say they have vision. They really don’t. So if you take the trouble of cleaning it out and getting it spruced up a little bit clean, then, yes, you’ll have success. You know, I’ve been doing this twenty-two years now, so I’ve lived through the downturns. And I remember back in two thousand, nine, ten, eleven, people were begging me to take their homes because they didn’t have the retail option. And so when I look at what’s around the corner, all the experts are saying that we’re going to have a change. Nobody knows what that is going to be yet. But as the retail market changes, we’re still going to have opportunities to buy houses. Whether you want to Phil, the thing might switch from wholetaling it today like you’re talking about, which I agree to. Well, now I’m buying them at a discount again. Can I build my rental portfolio? Right. I don’t know, how you dispose of the house is really up to you, the investor. I just always say I need you to do what you say. That’s it. Can you do what you say? And so the dispo of it, I think the exit strategy with the retail side, it’s probably a great time if you’re buying anything at a discount right now, it’s probably a great time to build your rental portfolio as well. 

Josh: Yeah, I love it. So, guys, listen, check out MomsHouse.com/3day. You can’t recommend this type of strategy and other strategies that nobody’s really doing. I love these kind of niche strategies to find deals. Phil’s the expert at it. Also, check out Accelerated Investor Episode 151 for my original interview with Phil. Of course, this interview as a kind of a follow up is perfect segue. And then check out Phil’s live event coming up here very soon. Phil, thanks so much for joining us again today on Accelerated Investor. 

Phillip: Thank you, Josh. I appreciate being on. 

Josh:So I hope you enjoyed that episode on Accelerated Investor with Philip Vincent. I love hearing from investors, you know, every six months and see how their business has changed and Phil’s business continues to thrive even in the middle of the pandemic. I love the way that he’s getting leads off market by referral with zero marketing budget. So if you enjoyed this interview, don’t forget to check out Episode one fifty one, my original interview with Phil. And also go ahead right now. And please leave us a five-star rating and review in iTunes YouTube. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode of Accelerated Investor.

You were just listening to the Accelerated Investor podcast with Josh Cantwell. If you enjoyed this episode and learned something new, help us build the A.I. community by leaving a review and five-star rating on our iTunes podcast channel. Also, don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss another episode. To see passive investing opportunities, visit FreelandVentures.com/passive. To start your journey toward the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of with multifamily apartments, apply for one-on-one coaching with Josh at www.JoshCantwellCoaching.com.

Mom’s home is paid off, and it’s clean, but it’s full of a lifetime of memories. It also hasn’t been updated in thirty, and the adult children live on average 400 miles away. Does this sound like your mom too? There are hundreds of thousands of seniors just like this who fit into Phillip Vincent’s customer profile, and he has his hands full helping them sell their family homes and move into an elder care facility.

I’ve talked with Phillip before in episode 151, Getting Hot Leads From Seniors, but I wanted to follow up with him and see how the pandemic affected his lead flow. Even though he saw a 6% dip in demand at the beginning of last year, there’s no getting around the fact that mom and dad are aging. At some point, adult children have to face the fact that they need 24-hour care. And while adult children may be more likely to choose a smaller facility over a “big box” care center, they still need to sell mom’s house to afford the new facility.

In this interview, Phillip gives us an insider’s look for how to talk to stakeholders in the elder care industry, and he includes his top ten types of people that you want to talk to for leads:

  • Proprietor
  • Director
  • Finance director
  • Marketing person
  • Social worker
  • Downsizing experts
  • Placement agents
  • Eldercare attorney
  • Aid and attendance benefits providing person

Phillip needs you. He is expanding nationwide and he needs partners across the country who are ready to take on fix and flip homes. At his 3 day event, he’s going to teach you everything you need to know to work in this extremely busy and unique niche, including the special scripts that you’ll need to use to talk to every one of these stakeholders.

What’s Inside:

  • Pitching anyone in the elder care industry is going to look radically different than cold calling sellers or approaching a distressed sellers list.
  • The top 10 people you need to talk to for leads in the assisted living community.
  • How you can partner with Phillip no matter where you’re at in the country.
  • Not even a worldwide pandemic can stop grandparents from getting older and moving into their next stage of life.

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