[00:00:00 – 00:00:32]

Carline Cadet Francios: I have this weird thing. Once I see something that I want and I see how it can impact me, my generation, and others, like there’s no giving up. There’s giving up and, um, leaving it for later because there’s obstacles that is not in my dictionary. And I teach that to my children. And, and I think sometimes people, people are petty because they want to sit back and laugh and see how many times this lady have to send an email or come back. But what they fail to realize is, once this lady get what she wants, she gets her freedom and she makes the money that she wants to make and you’re still where you are.

[00:00:33 – 00:01:10]

Welcome to the Share the Wealth Show, where minority professionals can learn to escape the racial wealth gap and catapult themselves into abundance. Your host, Nicole Pendergrass, grew her net worth from being negative to multiple six figures. Join her on her investigative mission to expose secret strategies of the wealthy so we can all have the tools needed to build the life and legacy we were created to possess. Now it’s time for the show.

[00:01:11 – 00:03:46]

Nicole Pendergrass: Welcome everyone back to another episode of the share the wealth show. This is the show where we discuss strategies on how to build, grow and protect minority wealth. I’m so glad that you’re rejoining us again today. And what I want to talk about, we have a fantastic guest, Carlene Cadet Francois. That is Francois is correct, right? Oh yeah. My French is a little bit still on point. I did take French in high school and a little bit in college. But that was so many years ago that my, I try to pretend that I’m still a little French or have Francophile type of jeans. But your, your last name is Haitian then, right? Or it’s French, but you did very good. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Um, all right. So this is a show already said that where we grow, build, grow and protect minority. Today guys just bear with me today has been I’ve just got back from vacation and my brain is all over the place and I am getting it together. But the show must go on and Carline has such great information to share with you guys that’s why I’m super excited. To have a talk with her today, because this is going to give you insight that you allow you probably have not heard before because I have never talked to someone who has been doing this strategy before. But yes, so. Let me look a little bit at your bio. I wanna go too heavy into it because I know you’re gonna get into the details of that. But she’s a first generation real estate investor and ALF mentor who empowers individuals to open and operate successful assisted living facilities. Assisted living facility, she’s an owner and operator and her expertise guides clients in creating profitable and desirable environments. So I also know, we’ll talk about this later, you do have a book out on how to open up an ALF. And I’m excited to talk about that a little bit at the end as a resource for people to tap into further after this conversation if they wanna dig in. But okay, I’m jumping way ahead of myself because I wanted to ask you another question, but we’ll save that for later. So. How did you, what, tell me a little bit, what are you doing now and why you decided to do ALS?

[00:03:47 – 00:06:21]

Carline Cadet Francios: So a little bit about me, I started in law enforcement, like everybody else. My parents teach us to go to school, be smart, be educated and find a good pension job. And that’s exactly what I did. I did very well at the Brown Sheriff’s Office. When I decided to retire early, I was a sergeant, a supervisor. So, but then I realized I needed to do something else that would give me more flexibility to be mom-in-chief at home. So, I ended up, I’m a real estate investor. And so I had a property that I was going to put into the market as the rental property. And I decided to flip that property into an assisted living. And since leaving the Sheriff’s Office, I’ve been managing my assisted living, teaching people how to open writing books and doing all kinds of good stuff. So that’s all I’m doing now. Okay. How long were you in, were working in the police department, the sheriff’s office before you left? So I was there for 10 years. So, you know, I did my due diligence. And while I was there, I think it was God that was leading me. Because looking back, I didn’t know anybody that wanted to do the things that I wanted to do. And I didn’t know how to find the answers to these ideas in these questions that I had in my mind. I think it was God leading me on. And I started searching, Googling stuff and find YouTube and all kind of resources came my way online. And then I started paying for coaching. Ultimately, I ended up using my W-2 income to help me buy multifamily income properties. And with that, and my husband is on board also as my support system. And so, you know, I’m not taking all the credit. It’s not just me, if anybody’s listening to this out there. But using my W-2 income and having these income properties allowed me to retire early. And that’s how I got into assisted living. My mom was already in the industry. She did that while I was in high school, when I was in college, that’s all she did. And that’s how the idea of assisted living came about. And I ended up opening one.

[00:06:22 – 00:07:00]

Nicole Pendergrass: Nice, okay. So I’m just trying to get some of the timeline here. You started leveraging, which is something I talk about. Frequently, like not everyone is meant to just jump out of their job immediately. And not any, that’s not also smart really. And once you have that runway built up, but you started leveraging your W two income and putting that into investment properties while you were still working. So how many properties, you just say multifamily, how many properties or how many units do you have before you left your job?

[00:07:01 – 00:07:02]

Carline Cadet Francios: Three.

[00:07:03 – 00:07:04]

Nicole Pendergrass: So three units?

[00:07:05 – 00:07:06]

Carline Cadet Francios: Three properties.

[00:07:07 – 00:07:09]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Oh, three properties. Okay. They’re all single. They’re not all single.

[00:07:10 – 00:07:11]

Carline Cadet Francios: Two singles and one multi.

[00:07:12 – 00:07:19]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Ah, okay. Okay. And so then before you left, you converted one to assisted living or you converted it after you left.

[00:07:20 – 00:07:28]

Carline Cadet Francios: So I started the process while I was still at the sheriff’s office and I left in December and got my official license in January following the next year.

[00:07:29 – 00:07:33]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Nice. So which property did you convert to assisted living? All of them or just one?

[00:07:34 – 00:07:36]

Carline Cadet Francios: One, a single family property.

[00:07:37 – 00:07:53]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Okay. So out of the three properties that you had, what made you decide to pick that particular property for the assisted living? Like, was it something structurally or layout wise that made that property ideal for assisted living? And yeah, what was that decision making process?

[00:07:54 – 00:09:08]

Carline Cadet Francios: So it was just so happened that that property was empty. I didn’t have a tenant in it. And at the time, I wish I could say it was because I did so many research and find out that it was the area for it. But I didn’t know what I was doing. And so, thank God, like I said, I believe God was leading me in the process because I did not research and find out that, you know, this was the area for assisted living or anything like that. The idea came, I know I wanted to do this. I have this property is fit for what the inside should look like based on what I read from the policies and procedures of what assisted living should be. And then I went with that. I did all of the requirement, the conversions, generators, sprinkler system, worked with a whole bunch of contractors. You know, different people from the city’s zoning department. I made a whole lot of mistakes, but I learned so much. I learned so much and it was frustrating and fun all at the same time. And that’s how I ended up, you know, having that particular building as the assisted living.

[00:09:09 – 00:10:28]

Nicole Pendergrass:  What I love about that whole story is just that you didn’t know what you were doing. You made a lot of mistakes. You were frustrated, but you kept pushing forward. But you had that desire to make it work. And it wasn’t even that you were strategic with picking the property. You had some income property and like, Oh, this one’s vacant. Let me just use this one. But things just worked out because you kept pushing forward. And that’s what I want people to realize is that done is better than perfect. Just start doing, just start taking the steps. Even if you don’t know what it looks like three miles down the road, you can’t even get to three miles down the road unless you take the first step, unless you take the next step and the next step. So all of it is like progress and all the learning and mistakes. And I don’t even call it, well, it is a mistake, but it’s a learning lesson. Like you didn’t lose because you didn’t quit. You just kept pushing and now you have a successfully operated. Assisted living facility and now you’re teaching other people because guess what? You’ve gone through a lot of mistakes that someone else who’s new and not just getting started has not gone through and they don’t even know to ask. They don’t even know to watch out for those types of mistakes. So I really, I really love that.

[00:10:29 – 00:12:06]

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[00:12:07 – 00:13:41]

Nicole Pendergrass:  What’s probably, I guess, the biggest mistake, but the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome that maybe was from a lack of knowledge or know how or… What was one of the biggest things you encountered in this conversion? I had plenty of them. The biggest one I would say was dealing with the zoning department. I didn’t know that before I did anything, I needed to get approval. And based upon the approval, that determines which steps I take first. That’s why today when I tell my students, you know, and I give them a simple letter of what they should write to the zoning department so they can get the language right. Because you know how the question you should ask is the one you didn’t know to ask? Well, that happened to me a lot during that process. And people, people are either so disgruntled or just don’t care that they know what you need to ask. But since you didn’t ask for it. They’re going to be petty and they’re going to delay you until you get it right. Well, that’s what happened to me.

[00:13:42 – 00:15:04]

Carline Cadet Francios: Oh my God. And that is just, and that’s just so true. That hit me hard because everyone who’s in a government position or in a position at a certain facility or office or whatever that you need to interact with. Doesn’t mean they know. Everything because they work there and doesn’t mean they’re going to go above and beyond to tell you what you need before you kind of have to come back 50 times because you keep forgetting something or not even forgetting not realizing or not knowing that you needed something because they didn’t tell you that when you went the first time. I think simple super example that almost everyone has gone through is just going to the DMV. I feel like that’s almost the same like. You go you read online documents and stuff you need you bring what you want what you need or you think you need, then they say oh no you’re missing this so. And I have to go and have to wait in this whole long line again do this whole process again you go you get the thing that they said you’re missing and add it to the paperwork you already have. You go back to somebody else’s oh no you’re supposed to have this one, two or this instead of that, and this is like. Then someone told me this the first time when I was just here. And you, how many times you have to go back through that process coming back again and again, and some people just get frustrated. But if you didn’t need to drive, then you would just leave it alone. But because most people need to get somewhere, a lot of people need to drive. You have to just go through that frustrating process.

[00:15:05 – 00:15:15]

Nicole Pendergrass: What made you not stop with all the back and forth? I know you had with the departments and trying to figure out all the, all the pieces. What was that driving force that made you keep pushing through?

[00:15:16 – 00:16:18]

Carline Cadet Francios: I have this weird thing once I see something that I want and I see how it can impact me, my generation and others, like there’s no giving up. There’s giving up and leaving it for later because there’s obstacles. That is not in my dictionary. And I teach that to my children. And I think sometimes people are petty because they want to sit back and laugh and see how many times this lady has to send an email or come back. But what they fail to realize is once this lady get what she wants, she gets her freedom and she makes the money that she wants to make. And you’re still where you are. You know, that’s, that’s the piggyback. And in my head, I laugh and I prepare myself to make a hundred or 2000 trips. But at the end of the day, I get the last laugh. Because I get what I need. I get what I want. So it’s all about how you look at life and how you look at things. Okay. Yes, it is frustrating. I’m not going to lie about that, but I don’t let that deter me at all.

[00:16:19 – 00:16:51]

Nicole Pendergrass: Yeah. And I think, you know what, even no matter how, what industry you decide to go away, go with what investment decision you try to make, what asset class you’re in. There’s always going to be these roadblocks and things that make, will test you in the journey. And that just is testing your resolve and how far you want to go with this. And you know what I also think I jumped into without fully explaining, can you explain what is residential assisted living? We just started having a conversation and just in case someone out there doesn’t understand or doesn’t know what residential assisted living is. Can you let, let us know what that is.

[00:16:52 – 00:18:44]

Carline Cadet Francios: So residential assisted living is pretty much a single family dwelling that is converted. And is licensed as an assisted living. Compared to a larger assisted living, we’re not allowed to have signs. So we look like any other single family home down the street, there is no sign. There isn’t anything that would indicate that this is an assisted living. It’s just like every other house in the neighborhood. But we are licensed just like the big. Assisted livings, we are governed by the same state statutes, the same inspectors come to inspect, you know, the big or small facilities. This is only the difference and it residential assisted living provide a more 1 on 1 care type focused. We’re able to cater more to your loved one if they need more assistant with activities of daily living. If they need help with feeding, eating medications is a big one. We’re more able to give the more one-on-one care type focus, whereas the bigger assisted living, they’re more focused for people who are more active and they want to just enjoy life. You know, they don’t want the responsibilities of cooking and cleaning. And they want to have a professional to look over them. But they don’t really need care per se. And they would go to a bigger assisted living and their focus would be more on activities and things like that.

[00:18:45 – 00:18:50]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay, so with assisted living, who is your tenant type?

[00:18:51 – 00:19:47]

Carline Cadet Francios: My tenant type are elderly people who needs help. They either have, let’s say for example, dementia, they may have had a fall and they’re not able to take care of themselves. They may have other issues like they can’t do much for themselves. They need somebody to take them a bath. They need somebody to cook for them. They need somebody to remind them about their medications. Someone to call the doctor for them. Whatever need that they have, we make sure we activate the proper resources because the doctors, the nurses, the podiatrist, the dietician, everyone still comes in to provide the level of care that they need. And I don’t have to pay those people. You know, all I need to do is make sure that me and my staff alert these resources for our seniors when we see that they need it or the family see that they need it.

[00:19:48 – 00:20:36]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. So what I’m trying, I guess, to dig into then, you did say the larger residential assisted living is more focused on activities. And if someone’s a little bit more mobile and, and can get about and, you know, it wants to be active, what’s the difference between that? What you’re doing with a smaller residential assisted living and like just a senior living facility, like a, like a gated community for seniors or something like that. So, to me, in my brain, I’m thinking the gated community, like a senior living center, is more for people who are mobile and don’t need help. And I didn’t realize the larger assisted living facilities actually focus more on the activity and less on the assistance. Is that what it is?

[00:20:37 – 00:23:00]

Carline Cadet Francios: They provide the assistance, but they go by phases. Like, let’s say if my mom came in, she was able to move around, she was able to feed herself, all she needed was someone to help her with her medication. Right. That’s her primary need. And now she fell while she’s there. This is common. While she’s at this larger facility, she fell and broke her hip. She goes to rehab and doctors say she can go back to assisted living. She goes back to this bigger ALS and now she needs more help than what she initially came in needing. So now she would have to either go to a nursing home, downgrade to a smaller ALF because we have less people and we’re able to provide more one-on-one care or the family members can decide, let me bring a private caregiver to sit with mom at that bigger ALF, but they’ll be paying twice. So that’s pretty much the really the big difference really at a smaller setting, we still have activities, we still have different things that they do, but we are able to provide a focus type care because of our size. We’re smaller and so with smaller comes more one-on-one focus. So compared to like a senior center, we’re not really in the same realm because senior centers are not licensed under the same umbrellas that were licensed as assisted living. There’s a set of rules that we have to obey. Like we have to have doctors that comes in to see them, whether big or small. We have to have a dietitian that determines what they should eat, whether big or small. We have to have medication management, education, whether big or small. The only difference is the bigger the ALF, the more residents they have the less they’re able to focus on more, more one-on-one care and the smaller the ALF, the more we’re able to focus on one-on-one care.

[00:23:01 – 00:24:03]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. Perfect. Now that seems like, tell me the, I was going to say that seems like just a lot more work, right? So there has to be that passion. I understand you said your passion and why you want to do this. But to me, and I also want to see like, what’s the anatomy of what, uh, ALF business is like, so there is the business and then the property are those combined. You have to have one to have the other. Like, how does that work? How does your staffing work? How does, you know, you said me and my staff had to make sure that the doctors and stuff are notified. Like, how do you coordinate just the running of it? What’s the typical day? In the life of someone working at an ALF? And what does that business structure look from a high level as far as like the business and the property and how that, can people do one without the other or they have to have both or explain all of that for someone who’s looking to get into ALF or interested at least in the idea what they should expect?

[00:24:04 – 00:26:35]

Carline Cadet Francios: That’s a great question. So for me, a day to day, I manage, meaning I hire the staff to work. I’m in direct contact with residents’ families. I find residents. I’m in direct contact with the licensing authorities, the people that come in to do inspections to make sure that we are abide by policies and procedures. I’m in direct contact with those people. And so I manage the staff. I don’t do the caregiving per se, not to say if I show up and I see a resident need something and my staff is helping someone. I’m going to stand back and say, I don’t do that. No, I put my hands when I need to, but on a day to day, I do not manage. I handle the phone calls. I make sure the files are in order. I make sure inspections are being completed on a timely matter and that we do what’s necessary. One of my pet peeves is cleaning this. Like at my facility, the tile is white. And it has to be clean, it has to smell good. And I make sure all these things are in order and I manage, right? I manage. And so the structure in the day-to-day for a caregiver and someone who is like myself, the administrator and manager is different because most of this thing I can do from home. I don’t have to be at the facility to find out how someone’s mom is doing. I can look at the camera, I can call my staff, they keep me up to date. So I go to the facility as necessary. And so I still have the freedom of time while I’m managing my facility, making sure everything is how it’s supposed to be. And also too, Nicole, the family members, they visit. Their friends, they visit. So if someone is not doing what they’re supposed to do, there’s so many different people walking in to make sure that the place is running in an orderly fashion. So it sounds like a lot, and it is, but once you understand and you’ve already put things in place, once and correctly, it pretty much manages itself.

[00:26:36 – 00:26:59]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. How do you find the right staff? Like how many bedrooms and how many residents do you have at your property? And how many staff do you need to support that number of residents? Like is there a standard number of staff per resident?

[00:27:00 – 00:28:17]

Carline Cadet Francios: Right, so for me, I have a single family home and I keep it like a typical size of a family. So we are licensed for four residents. So we do four private pay residents, meaning this room is bringing me an X amount of money, whether I put two people in it or one person in it. And I have two staff. So I have the caregiver and then I have someone else to kind of like look over and assist as necessary. And that someone is able to go shopping for me, able to answer emails, able to, you know, send a fax or reach out to the pharmacy. I train them to where if I don’t wanna do certain things, they get to do it, but certain things as the administrator, I must do. So some of it is, you know, I’m able to delegate, most of it. I’m able to do myself from home. And then I just visit the facility on a daily, uh, as, as I see fit.

[00:28:18 – 00:29:15]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. So then you have two. Care or two employees for the four residents and you decide to keep your rooms as private suites, I guess, just for a residence type of like self. I don’t know, self-realization or yeah, and just privacy and things like that. And a lot of it is based on what the families want. This is, they come in seeking a private room for their law. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Most people, I guess would want, would want a private room. So with private, I know you say you get the same amount of money for a private room as you do for, if you put two people in the room. So that’s, I know probably counterintuitive to what a lot of people would think. Like, if there’s a certain, I understand if there’s a certain size room, there’s the room would have to be a certain size to even be able to put two residents in a room. But why is it per room and not per resident, the payment structure, if each resident has their own payment kind of system?

[00:29:16 – 00:29:55]

Carline Cadet Francios: Right. So you are correct. The rooms, all the rooms, the square footage of the home, all of that is determined by the licensing authority, which in Florida, it is ACCA. The reason you wanna have a per room charge for your facility is because you need to have a certain net operating income to be able to run a smooth operation. And you can’t pinpoint, oh, this person is nice, I’m gonna charge them X, this person may not seem nice, I’m gonna charge, it makes everything equal. This is how much I charge, every person that is in the facility is paying the same fees. And so it makes it fair and it makes it equal. And I don’t have to pinpoint who I’m going to charge more or less.

[00:29:56 – 00:29:57]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay.

[00:29:58 – 00:30:31]

Are you enjoying this episode? Then stop what you’re doing right now. Head over to Apple podcasts and leave us a rating and review. It really helps our show get pushed to more people who are looking for the information that we’re sharing here. We have to share the wealth. If you listen to us on YouTube, make sure you like the episode that you’re listening to right now. And subscribe to our channel, the share the channel with somebody else. There are people out there looking for the information you’re listening to right now. So make sure you share it with someone who you know, needs it now back to the show.

[00:30:32 – 00:32:20]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Okay. Um, well, I have so many questions going in my head right now, and I’m just wondering where to go. So, all right, this is the share the wealth show, right? So let’s talk about the money. All that we do, we do these. Like, entrepreneurial investing activities. And a lot of times we do have a strong why that is philanthropic or not philanthropic, it’s not the right word, cause it’s for profit. But it is to give back, but to give and to receive. Like it’s for us to elevate, for us to have time freedom, location freedom, be able to step away from our jobs. We wouldn’t be able to do that without an appropriate amount of income for the services that we are providing. So, and you don’t have to say your income particularly, but for a general, like a four resident type of single family home, can you give an example of what the net operating income or actually even the revenue and then the NOI would be on the property? And just for people listening, the revenue is just all the income that’s coming in, all of the payments from the four residents. And the net operating income is once you subtract out all of the expenses. So that’s a different way to say, like, what’s your top line? And then what’s, NOI is not really bottom line because you don’t include the mortgage payment. But it’s a little, it’s a better gauge of what you can be taking away.  So yeah, it’s a long, long question. But yeah, what is, in general, what should people expect as far as income? Comparatively, especially to a long-term regular rental, which is what most people know.

[00:32:21 – 00:35:49]

Carline Cadet Francios: So I will say like this, because I’ve had, for example, some of my students, once you give them a number, they hold on to that. I will say, if you start an assisted living per room right now in Florida, that room should be making you around $6,500 at the lowest per month, and up to $8,000 at the highest per month. Now, depending on your facility and where you’re located in how you structure your show, you can even have it a little higher than that, but this is the average. So imagine if you have four rooms, that’s how much you’re making. Now keep in mind, some of the money that you’re making, your biggest expense is your staff. And so being able, like say me, for example, I could have made more if I decided to be a caregiver, but I value my time more and I have other income streams. And so to me, time is more important to me. So I choose to pay my staff and get what I get after my expenses. So there are also a lot of little things that will take away some of you know, the expenses you have to pay for inspections, liability insurance, and all of those things. But at the end of the day, if a room is giving you, let’s say, you know, 6,500 at the lowest, 7,000 is ideal, whether you put two people or one person, you know, you do the math. If zoning tells you in a residential area, you have 12 people, you have six people, you have eight people. So you do the math and then you get to see how much you will be able to make. I also have a guide on my website, carlincadetfrancois.com. It answers a lot of these questions and it gives you an idea of what you should look into, what you can consider, things you’ve probably never thought about. And for me, it is more of a giving back, like you said, but being able to maintain my freedom. You know, I love our seniors. I love the fact that they paved the way, you know, even someone like me, I came from deep poverty, um, up until today, I’m still, you know, the first in the family will not be the last because there are others coming like me and there are tigers, they about to go get it. And you know, it’s like, you have choices and I have a lot of caregivers that wants to open assisted living, but then they don’t have enough income. So I say to them, why don’t you joint venture with another caregiver, team up, put your money together, and perhaps you can work there. Now you created your own income with all these job losses that’s going on, at least you know your job is secure, pretty much. All you need to do is find residents, which is not hard. You know, you could go to the churches, I give ideas and tips on that guide also of how you can find residents go to the churches work with placement agents, you know how you find stuff you go on indeed you go to the churches, you let people know what you do and why you do it and you’ll find the resources that you need.

[00:35:50 – 00:36:24]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Okay, so that’s that’s perfect um. wow. Okay, so if 6,500 is the low end for what you can potentially get per room, at least in Florida, and it might be different in other areas, but just as an average, if that’s the revenue, what would, do you know what the NOI would be per room on average if you’re, if you’re getting 6,500 in revenue, what would be your, after expenses, what would you take home?

[00:36:25 – 00:37:37]

Carline Cadet Francios: I never actually look at it per room. You pay your staff on average, let’s say $15 an hour. Okay. And your liability insurance, depending on where you are, it would range on based on your area. And then you have your inspection that costs a little less. So it depends from person to person pretty much. Okay. So I tell, I tell people to be completely specific, I tell people, before you open up an ALF, find out how many residents you can have in that ALF, call an insurance provider, and I provide some of those resources, ask them for that area, how much do you charge? And then you would have already know how much you can charge per room, and then you know how much you can charge for. You will pay a staff and then based on that, you determine your NOI from there. Cause it will depend from person to person and area to area, area to area.

[00:37:38 – 00:38:05]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Yeah. I’m just trying to also just give people a super, super rough estimate. And guys, this is not for you to take this to the bank and be like, well, I know I’m supposed to make this much. If I do ALF, no, no, just a general. But like if they were looking at a property and before they made any phone calls, if they did a 50% expense ratio, would that be too much?

[00:38:06 – 00:38:14]

Carline Cadet Francios: It would be, there would be a little less than that. Okay. But like I said, it depends on the area.

[00:38:15 – 00:39:07]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Yeah. No, I get that. I get that. So I’m going to say, I’m going to say between 30 and 40%. No, and then dig in further, but at least it gives you kind of a rough guideline. To be conservative, you can go a little bit higher on the expense ratio. But, well, okay, so that’s really such great information. Now, what is your next step? Like where do you plan on doing this and growing? Because I’m really trying to find resources and ideas for increasing income and increasing impact for people who want to buy property, especially multifamily? Is this something that you can do in multifamily instead of just a single family house, let’s say you had a three or a four-unit property, would you be able to do ALF in the whole building, even though they’re separate kind of units?

[00:39:08 – 00:42:34]

Carline Cadet Francios: Um, that’s a great question. And I want to piggyback before I get to this question, Nicole, Oh, on the expense ratio, let’s say if someone were to say, I’m going to pick up a full time shift, and work at my al your expense ratio just pretty much complete drops yeah so you can play with that and that’s one of the reasons why I try not to say a number because people remember that number um but yeah you it doesn’t have to be um residential for some of it like if you find a duplex that is within a commercial area that will give you like 20 people, for example, it’s still a small enough size to where you’re going to have to put more than to staff. But then you have a bigger income that you can work with a duplex or triplex forplex. You can play with those. And also, if you have a duplex in a residential area, you can still do the same thing. You know, it’s just reaching out to city hall and find out if you’re allowed to be there as a residential assisted living or a commercial assisted living 15 or more would put you in that commercial well. And once they fight, once you find out if you’re allowed to be there, then you begin your process. But your 1st step is finding out. Let’s say you have the duplex you. Send my zoning request letter. I have one, if they go on my website, they can get that. And you email the template and you find out if you’re allowed to have it there. They’re gonna tell you yes or no and how many people you’re allowed to have. Let’s say you don’t have anything at all. You’re thinking about starting, buying a home or duplex to start an assisted living. Well, you find the property and you submit your offer. While you’re waiting on your offer, send out the email and find out if you’re zoned for assisted living and for how many, and based on that answer, you can decide if you should proceed or not. If you get a no, perhaps if you choose to proceed, you will go and rent that out. If you get a yes, you’ll proceed with assisted living. For me, the next phase is to like I remember telling you over the phone when we had a conversation that I started investing in multi-family as a passive investor. Ultimately, I want to be able to have more choices now that I have more time and time to educate, time to network and different opportunities come my way. I wanna help people open as many good assisted living as possible. I think I have always been in real estate without knowing because I always had an itch for it. I always wanted to be involved in real estate. And now that I have more time and more freedom, I’m able to tap into more of it. So yeah, the next phase for me is pretty much teaching and investing and helping others invest in real estate, however means that I can.

[00:42:35 – 00:42:43]

Nicole Pendergrass:  Nice. So are you, so you’re not looking to open up another assisted living of your own, but, but help students to be able to expand assisted living opportunities?

[00:42:44 – 00:43:03]

Carline Cadet Francios: Well, I don’t want to say yes or no. I think if, if I find the right assisted living, the right area, now that I know what I know, the possibility is there that I could decide to open one. But what I would do is replace myself with, you know, completely and I can be as passive as possible.

[00:43:04 – 00:43:34]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. Now, on that note, actually, for people who are interested in this model, but don’t want to run the business, is there a way to be involved if you, let’s say you own a property. Can they find someone like you who has the business and just, and how can they get more than what you would normally get from a long-term tenant if they were renting their entire building, maybe to someone who has an AFL business?

[00:43:35 – 00:45:05]

Carline Cadet Francios: So they could, if they decided that they want to be passive, they can join someone like myself who wants to be active in it. And then they get a percentage of their money. Or they can decide to do flips. Like say, for example, I decided right now, I’m gonna do all this and then I wanna sell it to someone already as a business. So now I have this building, the value of the building go up and now I built a business, it’s a successful business, it’s bringing revenues, it’s taking care of itself. And now I can then sell this business, sell this um property and now I have all this income to play with. That’s another way that they can look at it or they can choose to rent it out to someone you know like I might not want to be involved anymore and I decided I’m going to rent the business to another administrator and they come in and they’re paying me a percentage for the bit for the piece of real estate. And for renting the business from me. But they don’t necessarily own the business, but for a family member coming in, they wouldn’t know that this is not their business.

[00:45:06 – 00:46:16]

Nicole Pendergrass: Wow. So, okay, so renting the building to me makes sense. I’ve heard of that. And even like doing a triple net lease kind of thing where you rent. The building and you take care of the taxes and the insurance and all the other stuff. So I understand that concept, but I’ve never heard the concept of actually renting the business because for those of you listening, the business, the assisted living business is separate than the real estate. They can be separated, they can be together. If you own the real estate and you own the business that’s within it. So if you’re renting the real estate, now you can rent the business as well, even though you don’t have ownership, but you just like basically triple net lease the business and the real estate together. So as an owner, if I’m the one who started it, I can step away and be passive and now just get paid a percentage like of my ownership fee or they pay whoever’s renting it from me pays a flat fee and they can keep whatever on top of that kind of thing, but I still bake in my profit into that flat fee that I’m charging them.

[00:46:17 – 00:46:36]

Carline Cadet Francios: Yes, because they’re still paying you for the real estate and they’re paying you for the business in that one fee that you’re getting. Cause remember you made a lot of expenses to get this business going. So they’re paying you for the real estate and they’re paying you for the business. Also.

[00:46:37 – 00:46:42]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay. Wow. That’s a whole other concept that I even think about.

[00:46:43 – 00:46:52]

Nicole Pendergrass: Okay, guys, don’t kill me, but I’m gonna have to cut this episode short. This is too juicy and we need to do this in a part two. So stay tuned for the next episode that airs and you can hear the rest of our conversation.

[00:46:53 – 00:47:23]

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