Speaker 1
Good Saturday morning to everybody and welcome to your next chapter of production of The Heights at Avery Heights, a one-of-a-kind senior living community centrally located near the most entertaining and historical spots in Connecticut, and it’s never too late to grow and enjoy new realms of the mind and heart. Now, your next chapter delves deep into topics that will improve the way that we think about aging, senior living, and the retirement years, along with the Heights Senior Living Specialist, Siobhan Mattingly. I’m Gary Byron. Great to see you this morning, Siobhan.

Speaker 2
Good to see you. How are you? I’m good. I’m always nervous now by saying I’m good because I’m always, I feel good.

Speaker 1
Well, that’s good. I’m not going to be honest.

Speaker 2
I think it’s because I’m here. I think it’s because I’m here. It’s the environment. It’s the aura.

Speaker 1
You are very comfortable in here.

Speaker 2
I am. I know. As you should be.

Speaker 2
So I’m always like when you say I’m failing. I feel awesome. But then you guys make fun of me.

Speaker 2
I know. You do. In a kind way.

Speaker 2
You do. Kind of a boy. Jimmy doesn’t. You do.

Speaker 1
Oh, sure. Throw me under the bus.

Speaker 2
Well, he’s going to be a superstar.

Speaker 1
I only tease. You know, I only tease the ones I really like, by the way.

Speaker 2
Oh, okay. All right.

Speaker 1
If I didn’t like, I wouldn’t be teasing.

Speaker 2
I’m the same way. I don’t tease people. I don’t.

Speaker 1
No.

Speaker 2
Yeah.

Speaker 1
Because you don’t know how they’re going to take it. But if I’m teasing you, I’m comfortable with

Speaker 2
Well, sometimes people can be very bland, too.

Speaker 1
Well, in radio, that doesn’t work. Don’t be. Please, for the love of God, the worst thing that you can do is be bland.

Speaker 1
I know. You know. I know.

Speaker 2
How was your week? My week was good. What’s new at the Heights?

Speaker 2
We are going to be starting our garden club back up. Well, tis the season for that, huh? Yeah, we have a new resident.

Speaker 2
Her dad’s about to move in, and she has her own landscape design company. And so she’s amazing. She’s very, like, I want to say eco-friendly.

Speaker 2
Eco-friendly, that’s what it would be. She’s very into the environment. And so she is actually going to be starting our garden club.

Speaker 1
We were really excited. Like tomatoes? Cucumbers?

Speaker 2
I don’t know. Actually, I don’t know because we are actually having a committee. We actually – she found this wonderful woman, actually a friend of hers, that used to have her own nursery in the area.

Speaker 2
She just retired. She’s very excited as well. And so we don’t know.

Speaker 2
The committee is going to decide if they want to do vegetables, if they want to do flowers. We’re probably going to start it in the fall. So I would say this year we’re probably not going to be vegetable focused, probably more like herbs and maybe like flowers.

Speaker 2
And then next year. So they’ll figure out what they want to do. We want this to be totally the residents and this lady kind of like running it.

Speaker 1
Can you do both? Can you just portion? I’m sure. This is flowers.

Speaker 2
I’m sure. But I don’t know any vegetables that you start growing in the fall. Are there? Yeah.

Speaker 1
No, you need a little sunlight.

Speaker 2
Right. And lots of it. So that’s what I was saying.

Speaker 2
This year we’re probably going to do herbs and flowers. And then next year we’ll see what they want to do. But yeah, what’s nice about it is that Tim will use it for the dining room as well.

Speaker 1
Oh, using what you grow.

Speaker 2
Homegrown. Yeah.

Speaker 1
Like it.

Speaker 2
Yeah. It’s going to be good. Because our memory care right now has two raised gardens.

Speaker 2
And so they do a lot of like tomatoes and stuff like that and, you know, cilantro and all that stuff. And he uses that stuff as well as for the cooking demonstrations for our memory care also. And so this will be, you know, probably more so because we have a nice little acre.

Speaker 2
actually by the Adams Room where you guys were, there’s like a huge portion of land. And she’s like, well, you can repurpose this rather than mowing it and use it for the garden club. So it’s going to be fun.

Speaker 2
When is this? It’ll start in the fall. Fall, okay.

Speaker 2
But the meetings are ongoing right now. They’ll start now, yes. Because in the fall, you know, we want to have time to kick it off.

Speaker 2
And in the summers, really, you know, July, August is really night, probably a good time, especially with this heat we’re getting.

Speaker 1
Yeah, but it’s growing. It’s the growing season right now.

Speaker 2
Yes, but I don’t think we’ll be able to get it We have to like build as well. They want to build some raised gardens for people who can’t be hunched over. They want to have.

Speaker 2
So it’s a lot. And we want to kind of name it. Oops, sorry.

Speaker 2
Name it as I’m beating the place up. Yeah. So it’ll be cool.

Speaker 2
I want to name it like a really cool name.

Speaker 1
Give me an example. What would be a really cool name?

Speaker 2
I don’t know. I don’t know. Like I used to read my son this book.

Speaker 2
And what was that garden called? Peaceful Garden or something. That’s not really like a great name.

Speaker 2
But it’s just some kind of name. But I think the name we’re going to come up with it as we move through the process. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2
It’s almost like naming your dog. You don’t want to name your dog right away because you want to see the personality. Do you have a green thumb?

Speaker 2
I do not. My husband does. My husband is actually, we went to Lowe’s yesterday and I’m so excited.

Speaker 2
We got watermelon and tomatoes and peppers and lettuce and stuff like that. So I just pick things out and then he grows it. During COVID we started.

Speaker 2
And it’s so funny because he’s like, you don’t do anything with the garden. That was the first two years. And then I was just like, let’s have some acceptance here.

Speaker 2
You know what? It’s like, you know, it’s not my thing.

Speaker 1
Some of these things, like you mentioned watermelon, I know pumpkins, they take a while to grow.

Speaker 2
Yeah, which is fine. Yeah, yeah. We’re excited, though.

Speaker 1
Yeah, you should be.

Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s fun to grow stuff. I mean, he grows it, but it’s just, you know, I take credit for it.

Speaker 1
They do all the work, but you don’t take the credit for it. Like the little man, right? I’m on to you here. Our guest this morning, actually, if the name sounds familiar, is because we had him on about a month or so ago.

Speaker 2
This is our second repeat guest, so we’re moving along with this podcast.

Speaker 1
So that means he made the cut. He did. He did.

Speaker 1
From Mom’s house. He’s the co-founder. Let’s bring him back on.

Speaker 1
Ben Rayo. Ben, good morning.

Speaker 3
Good morning. Good morning, guys. Good to talk to you again.

Speaker 1
Yes. It seems like you were on, I don’t know, four or six weeks ago. A month or a month and a half ago.

Speaker 1
It wasn’t that long ago. Yep. So you were talking about paying for long-term care.

Speaker 1
So it’s great to have you back. Today we’re going to talk about your company that is one of the solutions for folks to help pay for that long-term care. We’re talking about Mom’s House.

Speaker 1
Mom’s House. Yeah. For those who couldn’t catch the first time that you were with us, what is Mom’s House and what services does your company provide?

Speaker 3
Yeah, Gary. So, you know, it’s interesting. A lot of times families aren’t ready to have that conversation, and so it kind of thinks many times can happen quickly, and a loved one needs to move into a higher level of care, and they find out how much it’s going to cost, and they realize, oh, my gosh, this is, you know, everything is more than we expect it to be, right?

Speaker 3
Always. It doesn’t matter whether we’re buying a hamburger at the grocery store or a car, whatever it is, it’s always more. And so then when the family, the adult children, which we call daughter Judy, is that avatar is trying to figure out how are we going to take care of mom and make sure she gets the greatest level of care. Many times they find out the house is their biggest asset.

Speaker 3
Many times it’s their forever home. We know men typically pass away before women do. So mom’s been living in the house trying to keep it going and something’s happened, an event or something, and the decision to be moved into care. So the house needs to be sold. Many times it’s grandma clean. It’s got the avocado appliances. Everything’s in perfect condition, but it’s not updated.

Speaker 3
And so what we do at Mom’s House is we actually, all over the country, we come in and provide services to families that have a senior transitioning into care. And that first service that we provide is coming in to buy the house. And so we come out and buy it. We’re not real estate agents.

Speaker 3
We’re not coming out to say, hey, clean it out, fix it up, do these to get top dollar. We’re going to just come in and buy it. And we can buy it in a couple different ways. We can come in and buy it as is, meaning you want to leave all the stuff behind. Maybe the basement is flooded. Mom’s not been downstairs in two years, so you can realize it. And so there’s a big mess there. A lot of extra stuff left around the house needs to be updated. So for us to come in and just buy it kind of as is and leaving any of the stuff that you don’t want, the family comes and gets the heirlooms, they get the stuff’s important. Now, if there’s a lot of valuable stuff, we’ve got resource partners that can come in to help with liquidation and selling the stuff and helping you pack up and move it. But we’re really there to buy the house. So one would be kind of what I just described.

Speaker 3
The other option, which a lot of people don’t understand, is we have the ability to come in and buy the house and let the family stay. So maybe this is more of a planning situation where they’re waiting for a villa or an apartment to open up an independent living. We can go ahead and buy the house, unlock the equity. The family gets their money, but mom can stick around for some number of months while she waits for her place to be ready.

Speaker 1
So it’s like a month to month, a month to month.

Speaker 3
Yeah. Sometimes, you know, as new independent living places are opening up or being built, it may be four months before the apartment’s going to be ready. And so they can stay there for those four months.

Speaker 3
Or if it’s a new build, maybe it’s going to be six months. But whatever it is, we’re fine to do that and let mom stay there in her forever home so she doesn’t have to move twice. Then the last one, which is really interesting, is the ability to give somebody an above-market offer.

Speaker 3
And people are like, what does that mean? You’re going to pay me more than my house is worth?

Speaker 1
People are doing it every day right now with the bidding on the low inventory of homes, right? I’m seeing that happen all the time.

Speaker 3
It is still kind of hot for real estate, but we’ve had some of the biggest drops in real estate in days on market since like 2015. So things have slowed down, interest rates, inflation, people being more cautious. You know, it’s interesting.

Speaker 3
It’s costing people anywhere from $300 to $500 more per month for a mortgage payment just because the interest rate changes. And that adds up to be a lot. But that above-market offer is something we can do with a family.

Speaker 3
Maybe they don’t need the money right away, and they’d rather have it be more of an investment. So we can pay them more and close right away, and they would be holding back some kind of note on the property for a short period of time, giving the family an opportunity to maybe earn some interest, increase the value while getting a higher offer. So we’re really going to meet the family at their level.

Speaker 3
What they need, what does the family need? Is it crisis and they need it right away? We’ve bought a house in as quickly as eight days for somebody that was bedridden, that didn’t have any family locally.

Speaker 3
We’ve done it where we’ve closed on a house and somebody stayed in the house for six to eight months after the closing. So it really just depends on what the family needs. We’re there to buy the house, and we focus only in the senior living industry.

Speaker 3
That’s really our focus. Right. It’s all over the country.

Speaker 1
Walk me through this process. What’s the first step that people need to do?

Speaker 3
So usually we’re getting introduced through a senior living care community that’s introducing the family to us, a placement agent, elder law attorney, somebody that’s a professional that’s in the senior living industry saying, hey, you need help with the house. They get introduced to us, or they come to momshouse.com and show out a form online and say, I’d like to get an offer for my house. After that, we’re going to assign that family to somebody that’s going to be a local senior transition specialist.

Speaker 3
That’s somebody that’s trained in what’s going on in senior living, and they’re out there to come meet with the family and see what the family needs and other resources they might have. I know you’ve had some guests on your shows that we have relationships with. Those would be people we might refer a family to that need those other services.

Speaker 3
So we’re going to come out. We’re going to walk through the house, sit down and understand what’s really going on, timelines, and then we’re going to give them a written offer to buy the house. They would say if they want to take that offer, they sign it, and whatever the closing date is.

Speaker 3
We’re closing it. It’s going through a regular title company. It’s just like if you were buying a house any other way, and then the funds get wired right to the family’s bank account.

Speaker 3
And so there’s a title company that’s in between all of that to make sure it all happens and all the titles are clear and all those things happen. And, you know, you can just watch the stress melt off of adult children because many of them are living in other cities where mom doesn’t live. And so they’re trying to figure out what are we going to do with all this stuff in the house and we’ve got to get it ready to get it on the market and the agent’s saying clean it up, fix it up to get top dollar.

Speaker 3
I don’t want to take on a rehab project. If the three of us are brothers and sisters, a mom lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, which one of us is going to go to the house to help clean it out and we’re going to hire contractors to fix it up to get top dollar? The family ends up at the same place with us that they could end up after going through all that effort.

Speaker 1
What’s the home buyer network?

Speaker 3
That’s our network of transition specialists. So we’ve got almost 1,000 boots on the ground all over the country. Those are the people that are going out to go buy the houses.

Speaker 3
Your market is very different than Kansas City where I live or my mom’s in Louisville or family in Chicago. All of those markets are all different. And so having people in those local markets helped to make it to where we can make the best offer to the family, just understanding that a house on this side of the street versus that side of the street is very different.

Speaker 3
So that’s what we do all over the country.

Speaker 1
What’s the cost? There’s got to be a cost to use these services.

Speaker 3
Oh, my gosh. The cost. Nothing.

Speaker 3
There is no cost. That’s the greatest part about this whole thing. It’s such a win-win between the senior living care communities, mom’s house, and the family.

Speaker 3
We make money on the real estate, so there’s no charges. There’s no commissions. There’s no fees.

Speaker 3
None of that happens this way. This is where the family doesn’t really understand the details of where they think, oh, if I lift it, which is what everybody’s always done forever, right, and you pay 6% or 7% commissions and closing costs, and then you spend some money to fix it up. By the time you water all that and take it all down out of all of the other options, you’re going to end up at about the same place with a mom’s house offer than you would going through the traditional route.

Speaker 1
All right. You take the home as is. I mean, you must have seen the creme de la creme of beauty, and you must have seen the opposite side of that spectrum as well, where there may have been hoarding and disarray and neglect. Do you take the home as is, or what’s your protocol?

Speaker 3
We do. So, Gary, you know what you call a hoarder that you like? An aggressive collector.

Speaker 3
We have lots of aggressive collectors out there. People, you know, you’ve got the people that are, you’ve got people that are actually hoarders and it’s filled with stuff and trash. And we’ve had it where we’ve had 10, 10, 15 dumpsters full of stuff.

Speaker 3
There’s so much stuff. You don’t think about the volume when you’re going up into a, you know, upward with the collections. But we know families have heirlooms and they have all the salt and pepper shakers and, you know, those kinds of things aren’t hoarders.

Speaker 1
Well, I don’t mean that stuff. I don’t mean the family heirlooms. I mean, TV guides from when Lucy was on the cover.

Speaker 3
Yeah, that’s right. And so that’s part of what we offer and evaluate to the families is to not have to deal with the stuff. The stuff is almost as stressful as the house because the adult children don’t want it, right?

Speaker 3
They want three or four pieces, each of us. They just want a few things from our childhood, from our parents, some photos, some other things. But then there’s a lot of other stuff that, and none of our stuff has as much value as we think it does.

Speaker 3
But you know what? There’s some great stuff out there that families don’t realize have value. And so we partner with companies like a Caring Transitions or other companies that are focused in the senior living industry that can come and help evaluate what they have or clean out or do those things.

Speaker 3
It just kind of depends. And we’ve also had houses, Gary, that need zero work. They’re in perfect condition.

Speaker 3
You can put a sign in the yard, they sell it. And the family just doesn’t want to deal with it. They’re trying to work on getting their family member, loved one into senior living.

Speaker 3
And they don’t want to deal with getting it ready and doing any of the things they need to do. They just want to get a solution taken care of and focus on mom. Some people value time over money.

Speaker 3
I actually can understand that, though. I get it.

Speaker 2
I think that’s the best part of your company is that you take the house as is. It really is. I mean, I know so many people that are just, especially the adult children, are just simply overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that’s in the house.

Speaker 2
And when I, you know, refer your company, they’re like, oh, they take it as is. And you’re right. After you water everything, after you’re improving it and doing this and doing that and all the work and the time, time is money too.

Speaker 2
It just makes more sense to go this route.

Speaker 1
Folks, you are listening to your next chapter, a production of The Heights at Avery Heights, along with Siobhan Mattingly. She is the senior living specialist. I’m Gary Byron. Our guest this morning is the co-founder of Mom’s House, which you can find online at momshouse.com, Ben Rayo. Ben, is this service available throughout the entire United States, or is this more concentrated in certain cities?

Speaker 3
No, we do this all over the country. You know, it’s funny. people that live in markets like, you know, New York or San Francisco or San Diego or even where you guys are, you know, houses are much more expensive. A house that’s a $400,000 house in the Midwest is a million dollar house in those other cities or more. And it still works there.

Speaker 3
It’s the same thing. It just scales. So we’re all over the country. You know, we’d love to help any families that are looking at it. The best thing is that there’s no obligation.

Speaker 3
It’s just another option. And if you don’t like this option, you can go the traditional route and, you know, fix it up and get it ready to put it on the market. But many times the family wants an easy button.

Speaker 3
And, you know, we’re sensitized to what’s going on during that transitional period for a loved one going into senior living or higher level of care. And so we’re just here as a resource and see us as another option.

Speaker 1
Generally speaking, how long does it take for a person to get the funds?

Speaker 3
So it really, we leave that up to the family. That’s up to the family as far as, you know, how big of a hurry they’re in. Many times they’re ready to get it done, and that’s a big relief.

Speaker 3
But they’re like, ah, can we get an extra three weeks because we need to do this? Or we’ve got some things they’re trying to get tied up from our family. So, again, we’ve closed in 10 days when it was an emergency.

Speaker 3
And we’ve gone, you know, months. But generally, it’s three to four weeks to kind of get it all done under contract and closed. The money gets wired instantly.

Speaker 3
As soon as we sign the paperwork and we go to closing, we take a closing date, whatever date that is, three weeks from now, four weeks from now, the day we sign the paperwork and close, the funds are electronically wired to the family.

Speaker 1
I would imagine, as I’m listening to you, that there’s several advantages of using mom’s house as opposed to doing this on your own.

Speaker 3
Absolutely. I mean, it’s because we are senior centric, you know, knowing all the pieces. If we if we see a folded up flag on a shelf, we’re certainly going to ask that family member if they were a veteran, served in an active war or if their spouse that passed away maybe years ago did.

Speaker 3
A lot of people don’t know about VA aid and attendance, which is money available for veterans that served in an active war, but also available to the spouse. And the spouse doesn’t even know to ask that. So, you know, being sensitized and understanding what all the different components are there.

Speaker 3
You know, sometimes we’ve got to get stuff because the houses, we want to make sure that we’re not going to disrupt Medicaid or something. Or there’s other things that are going on there. You know, if they have a long-term insurance policy for care, you know, that’s something that there’s resources we would refer them to for that long-term care insurance policy reviews and things like that.

Speaker 3
So you’re not going to find people in the real estate market that understand all those different pieces and parts. And so we don’t charge anything for those things. Those are just us referring families to other people that we know, like, and trust.

Speaker 1
What ends up happening to the house?

Speaker 3
that you purchase? What do you do with it? So it just depends on the house and where it is. We could fix it up to flip it. You see the shows that they show you how easy it is to fix a house in 30 minutes. And, you know, if you’ve ever done any rehab to your house or you’ve ever taken on any kind of a project that never gets done on time or on budget, that’s the naivety that people think that, oh, we’re going to be able to get this done. You know, it’s tough to find a good contractor.

Speaker 3
So all these things go into that decision-making process of, do I want to hit the easy button and end up at about the same place that I could, or do I want to go down the path that could take months? And taking those months, Siobhan, you said this earlier, time is expensive too. Well, it’s not just the time to get mom into care, but it’s also the time of insurance, taxes, maybe a mortgage payment, utilities, other things that are involved that the families aren’t thinking about that adds up that they’re really spending more money than they realize.

Speaker 3
Yeah.

Speaker 1
Did you, I mean, you run into that problem a lot?

Speaker 2
With the, oh, definitely. I think it’s very stressful for families. I think the main thing, like I said, is when people have to clean up the house, especially if mom was a hoarder.

Speaker 2
I mean, and especially, you know, again, people have been in the houses like 50, 60, 70 years. There’s a lot of stuff. I mean, I’m sitting here thinking about my house and I’m thinking about, oh my gosh, just the basement alone.

Speaker 2
But I’ve only been in my house maybe for 30 years. I mean, can you imagine? And then, like you said, the neglect as well.

Speaker 2
You know, the stoves now, I’ve been in houses that, you know, like you were talking about TV guides, like newspapers just like up to the ceiling. Oh, yeah. So have I. You know, and one guy.

Speaker 3
20 years of TV guide, right?

Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. 20 years. Broken stuff.

Speaker 2
People keep broken. I think it’s that generation of, you know, lack of. It’s like, you know, what if I need that?

Speaker 2
And it’s a broken whatever it may be, VCR. are, but it’s that feeling of like, well, maybe, you know, we can get that fixed. And you know, it’s that, what if I need that? My mom was like that, that what if we need that? And she’s got, it runs in my head, that tape sometimes when I’m about to throw something away. And I was like, I don’t need a broken hanger, you know, but it’s like that feeling of like, well, I could put some duct tape on it. What if I ever need that? And then sure enough, there are always that times that you actually need that thing. And then, you know, psychologically, like, wait, I do need it.

Speaker 1
I think that’s generational though. I do. These are people coming out of the depression.

Speaker 2
Exactly. The lack of. Yeah.

Speaker 2
When you have lack of. And actually not even that. It’s just like if you were, you know, my family wasn’t, you know, affluent.

Speaker 2
So it’s like that lack of, you know, not having. And so you hold on to everything that you can get your hands on.

Speaker 1
Although I got to say, I’m not from that generation, but I sit there and go, oh man, I used to have one of those. No, I could use that right now.

Speaker 2
Right? And you get frustrated.

Speaker 1
I gave it away. What’s his number? I’m going to get that back.

Speaker 1
Right? Yeah. I bet he doesn’t even use it.

Speaker 2
The broken weed whacker is like, why do you need that? You find out he threw it away. Exactly. You don’t need it. Just in case.

Speaker 3
Or Dad. Mom was a survivor, but Dad had all those tools and all the collections of all the stuff you’re describing, right? And so we have a whole garage and shed full of stuff that she has no idea if it has any value. Dad had six weed whackers in there that he was going to fix.

Speaker 2
Exactly. None of them work. Yeah, and cover the Porsche, right?

Speaker 3
Or we paid $100 for that VCR. I can’t throw that away or donate it. Yeah, VCR. It’s not worth $3.

Speaker 1
There’s not even tapes to play in the VCR. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2
The books, too. There’s always, like for me, like I read a book, I try to pass it on or donate it. But people hold on to their books and puzzles.

Speaker 2
Puzzles and books. There’s piles. People always want to donate.

Speaker 2
Although I revisit books.

Speaker 1
Those are books I read several years ago.

Speaker 2
If I like the book, but if it’s like a one, you know what I mean? If it was okay, you give it away. But if it’s a book, you’re right. It was a book that you really liked.

Speaker 1
There’s a few books I’ve read a couple times.

Speaker 2
Like the Rob Lowe biographies.

Speaker 1
I’ve never read the Rob Lowe.

Speaker 2
The autobiography, yeah.

Speaker 1
I never read a Rob Lowe’s autobiography.

Speaker 2
It was good, actually.

Speaker 1
I bet he lived a crazy life.

Speaker 2
Yeah. I shouldn’t say lived. He’s not even that old of a guy, is he? He’s not, but it’s amazing if you read the books, like the life that he lived. Like he’s in recovery and all that stuff.

Speaker 1
That I knew.

Speaker 2
Yeah.

Speaker 1
Yeah. Things you find.

Speaker 2
But we digress. There’s always time to talk about Rob Lowe. Sorry, Ben.

Speaker 1
A little crush on a little bit? Just a tad. Just a little bit.

Speaker 1
This is why we love you. It really is. You’re so revealing.

Speaker 1
It makes great radio. It really is. Candid as you are.

Speaker 1
I’m sorry, Ben. We’ve kind of gotten off the track. He’s 59 years old.

Speaker 1
Is he really?

Speaker 3
That’s okay. I was looking at her affection to Rob Lowe, and I was like, okay.

Speaker 1
This guy’s pushing 60. He looks better than I do. He does.

Speaker 1
Good God. Yeah, the money helps. And the Atkins diet.

Speaker 1
Oh, that’s right. He pushes that, doesn’t he?

Speaker 2
Yeah. We can go grab rabbit holes. Let’s get back to Ben. All right.

Speaker 1
Let’s go back to Ben.

Speaker 2
Ben.

Speaker 1
Back to Ben.

Speaker 2
Go ahead.

Speaker 1
Whatever you were saying.

Speaker 2
Did you sell Robbo’s house? No. Go ahead.

Speaker 3
No, but we bought it.

Speaker 1
Are there any houses, though, that you’ve refused or doesn’t fit your criteria? Good question.

Speaker 3
No, not really. Not really. It’s more about, you know, that it would be more that the offer that the family wanted to explore other options.

Speaker 3
We’re always going to be able to do something in some kind of a market. I mean, it can get challenging. You get into some city that the population of the city is 500, and it’s three hours from any major metropolitan area.

Speaker 3
And, you know, as far as, you know, values of houses and what you can do with it, and, you know, there’s some limitations there. We’re still going to try to help that family. And I’ll tell you what, if we can’t buy the house or they don’t want to take the offer, what I can promise is that we’re going to leave that family better than when we first met them.

Speaker 3
Whether we’re giving them a copy of the Paying for Long-Term Care book or whether we’re giving them resources for veterans aid and tenants or long-term care insurance policy reviews or any of those kinds of things, we’re going to leave people better often when we met them.

Speaker 1
And you know the value of the home. You know what to offer them, right? Sure, sure.

Speaker 3
That’s part of having people all over the United States to really understand what the values are. I don’t know what the value of your house is where you live, Gary, and what the houses across the streets work, but somebody that lives in your area does.

Speaker 1
Let me give the website once again. It’s MomsHouse.com, www.MomsHouse.com. And your phone number, do you want to reveal that?

Speaker 3
Oh, my gosh. I don’t even know what our phone number is. Do we do that these days?

Speaker 3
Okay. You’re going to make me go out to the house. I’m sorry.

Speaker 3
That’s okay. I’m just going to go to the mom’s house. I don’t know what the phone number is.

Speaker 1
Well, I’ll tell you what. It might be right on the website. Go to, and it’s really easy.

Speaker 1
You don’t have to. It is. Momshouse.com.

Speaker 3
816-744-0244. That’s 816-744-0244.

Speaker 1
816-744-0244. I want to thank our guest this morning, the co-founder of Mom’s House, Ben Rayo. Folks, you’ve been listening to the latest edition of your next chapter, Senior Living.

Speaker 1
To learn more about Avery Heights, please contact Siobhan at 860-953-1201. That’s 860-953-1201. Or connect with her online at averyheights.org.

Speaker 1
For Siobhan Mattingly, Senior Living Specialist at the Heights, I’m Gary Byron. Until next Saturday morning, have a good one, everybody. So long.