Timeless Dwellings: Unraveling the Secrets of Aging in Place

Aging in place refers to the ability of older adults to remain living in their own homes or communities independently and comfortably, as they age and their needs change. It involves making modifications to the physical environment and accessing support services to ensure that seniors can continue to live safely and securely in their familiar surroundings. Aging in place is often seen as an alternative to institutional care or moving to a new location, allowing older adults to maintain their autonomy, social connections, and quality of life.

In episode 14, we speak with local Aging in Place expert Tom Minty to inform you about what is aging in place is, and how it might work for you. Tom is an established John L. Scott realtor based in Issaquah. But he is also heavily involved in educating real estate agents about Aging In Place (AIG), and establishing norms on the MLS, for listing homes that may serve those with disabilities. Tom Minty is also on several non profit boards dedicated to making housing more accessible to the elderly and the disabled. Judy Gratton and Dennis Day welcome Tom Minty.

Tom Minty
John L. Scott Issaquah
1700 NW Gilman Blvd #300,
Issaquah, WA 98027
(206) 617-3935
Email: tommi@johnlscott.com

Northwest Universal Design Council
https://www.environmentsforall.org/home-checklist/

Transcript

 @3:43 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

All right. Here we go. And welcome to the Edge group real estate teams podcast, getting your edge, how right I think we are on episode number 14.

That's 28 weeks, Judy. That's pretty darn good.

@4:03 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I know, it's amazing.

@4:04 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

And we haven't really been late. We've been keeping up and that's kind of tough. So I'm proud of this.

@4:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

This is Dennis Day.

@4:15 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I'm your host with the co-host, Judy Gratton.

@4:18 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

How are you today, Judy? I'm great. Thank you.

@4:21 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

How are you doing? Good. And we have a great guest here today. Fell real estate agent with John Elscott.

And this is Tom Minty. How are you doing today, Tom?

@4:36 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Doing well.

@4:37 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Thank you. Great. Tom is here to talk about aging in place. And we'll get more in depth into that.

Tom has been a real estate agent for over 20 years with a special interest in the need for accessible housing.

He has served two years on the Seattle King County Advisory Council for Aging and Design. Disability Services with a charter member of the Northwest Design, sorry, let me do that again, a member of the Northwest Universal Design Council.

He is a strong advocate for equitable housing regardless of age and abilities and for the incorporation of universal design in mainstream housing market.

He's a member of the Board of Directors for Pushing Boundaries, a nonprofit organization focused on intensive exercise therapy for people with spinal cord injuries and neurological disorders.

Tom, I'm surprised you have enough time to be on this.

@5:39 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You've got so many things going on.

@5:41 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I've known you a long time. Tom, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

@5:47 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, like you said, it's been almost 20 years that I've been involved in real estate.

@5:55 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

And can you stop there for just a second, Tom? Can you turn up your volume a little bit?

@5:59 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah.

@6:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Turn it up.

@6:01 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah. Okay. Got it?

@6:09 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah.

@6:11 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

How's that?

@6:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And we cut and we edit this Dennis.

@6:21 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Don't worry about that. A little better.

@6:34 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah, a little better.

@6:35 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Okay.

@6:37 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So I'm gonna start again. Okay. A little con. Thanks for being here. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

@6:43 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, like you said, I've been a real estate broker for almost 20 years now. And almost all of that time I've been involved with accessible housing.

Just recently we started teaching that we have a clock hour class. that we teach brokers on how to look at their database and anticipate changes in people's lives and clean aging in place.

And we're actually have been busy creating a national certification program which we hope to have out this year.

@7:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Wow, I had no idea.

@7:18 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

You know, I'm the up for that clock hour class any day. Please, I can be first time clock hours takers there.

Tom, tell us what you define as aging in place because some people might not really know what that means.

@7:36 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Well, simply it means that you want to have the ability to stay in your home as you age. I think the ARP says something like 90% of people say they want to age in place in their home.

But unfortunately, there's only about 3% of the homes that are existing. accessible enough for somebody to live in and only about less than 1% are wheelchair accessible.

So it's a it's a challenge.

@8:11 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

What inspired you to get involved in specializing in aging in place?

@8:20 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

It was interesting actually I had when it first started Do you remember when you first started in real estate?

@8:26 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You really have no idea what you're doing. Yes.

@8:30 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I'm here with a mother of one of my son's best friends. We became good friends with who had multiple sclerosis and she had asked me, you know, if I found many accessible homes and I had no idea what that meant.

So I decided to do some research on it. And at that time, in fact, up to about four years ago, there were simply two buttons on the multiple list game that said disabled accents.

And that meant literally nothing. I mean, you could put that in no idea when people input that, what that matter, when people were looking for something, what that meant.

And realized when an underserved segment of the population that was. So that's when I really determined to really focus on that need.

@9:23 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I remember a long time ago when we were in the same office and you were working, I don't know if it was with the builder and we went out and looked at that home that you, it was a new construction that had been done with the people being able to engage in place.

So with that, can you kind of address what some of the challenges that people, I mean, people go, okay, stairs.

But I was amazed at all the things that you pointed out beyond stairs that made it easier for people to be able to stay in their home.

What are some of the challenges that older people face when aging in place and how would you address them?

@10:06 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Well, really there's a couple of things. One is they call activities of daily living. And that's taking care of yourself, you know, with the bathe and feed yourself and move about.

And then there's also what they call, even the word of it, it's IADL's instrumental activities of daily living. And that's actually being able to pay your bills, being able to get around in a few of those things.

And there are an aspect of aging in place above and beyond the house itself. You know, it's whether your house is accessible or not is one aspect of that, but your ability to take care of yourself is another.

It's a difficult equation for somebody to just say they want to stay in their home. It involves a lot more than that.

@11:08 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

True. I remember, for instance, all of the plugs, I believe, were lower on the law. The countertops were lower.

And of course, the hallways were wider if I remember. So the structure itself, that was some of the differences.

So how would you work with older adults in their family to create an aging in place plan? Where would you start with that?

@11:39 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Well, first of all, it's like we talked about with accessibility too. I mean, disability, approximately 20% of the population has some form of a disability.

And it doesn't just affect that person. It affects the whole family and the relatives and the friends and everything else.

And it's the only... So I'm just minority group in the world and the only one that anybody can become a member of in a split second.

So it involves starting earlier. It's much easier to be proactive than to be reactive. When you get to the point where you want to age in place, you need to have a plan in place and that involves talking to your family.

Or talking to your doctors. It used to be that you had a large family group and somebody in the family would normally take care of it.

So our parents growing up had four kids. And they got to that age and the kids would be taking care of them.

Well, you know, that's down to less than two children per household now and actually living alone has become not a condition but a lifestyle choice.

So for those people when they go into that aging in place mode. have to have a plan in place of who is going to take care of them?

@13:03 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Do you have any questionnaires that you provide to people to begin to make that plan or?

@13:15 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, actually there's a lot of things involved with that. There's organizations, for example, the agencies on aging. That's the organization that I'm on the advisory council for Seattle King County.

They have a plethora of resources that people can come involved with to actually ask those questions from an accessibility standpoint.

That's one thing that my partner give them an idea of what kind of changes need to be placed. The challenge in that too is partnering.

with other resources, disability or accessibility, which includes aging in place, is really an individual thing. You know, what's accessible to me might be inaccessible to somebody else.

In fact, even wheelchair users have different ways to access that. But the concept of universal design, like the house that you looked at, Jodi, means that you build a home with certain things in mind and make it usable by the greatest number of people possible, regardless of their abilities.

So that can mean things like you said, white or hallways, white or doorways, at least a level entry. And it's for somebody in a seated position, you know, raising the outlets up and the light switches down, because much easier, and it has no effect on somebody that's in the stand.

any position other than the fact that that's the way they've always been. In fact, you know, the standards quote unquote are pretty non-existent.

You know, it's like your keyboard on your computer. They call it a quirky keyboard because of the way the keys are laid out.

The only reason that that's laid out that hammers from getting scrambled about. So now it's still using it with our computers because that's what we've always done it.

Same thing with wall outlets. That used to be the height of a framing hammer. Somebody would lay their hammer up against the sheetrock and make a mark for their pen and that's the height you went.

So that's the standard. And building houses intelligently to percent more cost effective than. going in and retrofitting a house have been fact.

@16:03 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Very interesting.

@16:07 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Does building a new house with these standards in mind to make it more accessible?

@16:12 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Does that bring up the cost? You know it doesn't. Building back into a house during construction adds maybe 1% to the cost, whereas throwing that out and doing it later can be significant.

You know in fact there's an architect that I've worked with in Seattle that built his own house completely universal design and one of the things that he did is in the Green Lake area and you know Seattle infill houses there are usually steep lots and you know so it's a three little house but the the back of the house has level access into the lower floor.

The main floor has level access in from the street level and then through the center of the house. how to our five foot closets that are built on top of each other.

So at some point in time, you can take the floor and the ceiling out of the closets and the elevator shaft is built into the house.

@17:12 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Wow.

@17:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, so, you know, when you think about modifications, what role of does technology play in supporting aging in place?

@17:26 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Well, it's huge.

@17:27 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You can be the idea of building it so there's an elevator. So what else might come into play?

@17:34 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Well, it took down to itself is changing all the time. You know, I mean, you look at the world population.

By 2030, the baby boomers will all be over 65 and they'll amount to 20% of the world population. So are the actually the US population.

And by 2034, those people over 65 are actually going to be greater. than the number of under 18 for the first time in US history.

@18:05 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So it's a significant impact.

@18:08 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Technology is evolving to meet that need, largely because of the ability to stay in the house. I know that Intel, some of the larger companies actually have segments of their corporations that are dedicated to that, to do things like to be able to monitor activity in the house, to be able to dispense medications at a certain time.

And being able to stay connected, you know, even from an accessibility standpoint, being able to raise and lower your hurtings, open your door, change the temperature of your house, all of those things can be done by voice down.

And it's going to be coming, you know, more prevalent as Do you want to go along?

@19:01 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

No. When you talk about disabilities, we have a disabled son. And part of his issue is hearing. And so at night, when he goes to bed, he turns off his hearing aids.

And one of my biggest fears has always been if there was a fire that he wouldn't hear the smoke alarm.

So I looked into, there are some, they're not really very good. They'll flash bright lights, but he could sleep through almost anything.

And so I don't think that that would really trigger waking him up. I literally have gone to our local fire department and said, my son is in this room in this house.

And if there's ever a fire, you need to go there first. Because I don't know what else to do.

I don't know how else to address that. But that's a disability that, as people age, becomes more prevalent hearing.

And so things like smoke alarms and, you know, are there any other things? I think that they think are important and should be considered.

And that smoke alarm that just does bright lights is incredibly expensive. So cost is another issue. I'm sure that comes into play for people when they're looking at aging in place or developing their home in such a manner that it would work, right?

@20:23 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Right. And that's one of the big conundrums with aging in place is the cost associated with that. The concept of why people want to age in place or why people actually should age in place is that the cost of not doing that, going into either home care or assisted living is incredibly expensive.

And in fact, there's a long term health care program called Genworth that actually has an app that you can see.

and look at it and you can look at regionalized costs. And I think the cost for nursing home in the Seattle area right now is over $10,000 a month.

@21:09 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh my gosh.

@21:10 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

You know, for in-home care, it's a little over $7,000 a month. So the longer that you can stay in your house and avoid those costs, the less expensive it's going to be on your retirement funding as well as the US economy.

And the problem is is that about 20% of the US gross domestic product is health care. And about a vast majority of that is older Americans.

In fact, the cost of aging is about, for assisted living is about 20% and about 57% of that is from older adults.

@21:54 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So Dennis, you're dealing a lot with your mom is currently in assisted living.

@22:00 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Correct. She's in a senior care home. There's six residents and she fell and broke her hip in February. Her cost went from 8,300 a month to 9,100 a month because she needed more care now that she's recovering from the broken hip.

It's horrendously expensive. Basically she is using my mother and father's life savings and everything they've made and invested and the home that they sold to fund this housing.

@22:38 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yep. Yeah, and those are the considerations on aging in place. She's fortunate to be able to do that. A majority of the population, particularly somebody in a rental situation, they can exhaust their life savings in a couple of months.

You know, so it's fortunate to own home and to be able to do that. And fortunate to have somebody to take care of her, to look after her.

You know, one of the problems we're looking at too is that about a little over 50% of the elderly population is either in rural or somewhat dispersed areas.

And once you stop driving, your social isolation can become horrendous. And that's a huge part of being able to stay in your home as a social interaction.

I always like to say that universal design is both sides of the front door. You know, you have to be able to get in the house and out of the house.

You have to be able to get around in the house and you have to be able to get around in the community.

So having people around to help you, people to keep an eye on you is essential.

@23:57 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Wow.

@23:59 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Is there a trend? is multi-generational households in the US?

@24:03 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

There actually is. It's an increasing percentage right now. I think, besides the fact that the older population is becoming so prevalent, that it also is a cost savings for the generation as well.

Countries like Japan have always had great respect for the elderly. And multi-generational is way alike. The same thing with the larger spectrum.

@24:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And the country side that way. Many of the Asian countries side that way.

@24:36 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

So yeah, I mean, that's a big concern.

@24:41 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Are there any misconceptions about aging in place? And when you go in and talk with people, how do you dispel those?

What are some of the common misconceptions?

@24:55 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Misconceptions. Well, I think probably one of the biggest ones talking about aging in place is that everybody can do it.

You know, like we said, less than 3% of the homes are accessible for somebody with a disability, let alone a wheelchair.

And not every house can be adapted. You know, some just physically cannot do that. It would be cost prohibitive.

And so that the other ways of thinking of that, you mentioned, you know, assisted living, but there's also the concept of, of accessory dwelling in the TADLs.

You know, that's becoming very popular right now for the reasons that we talked about economically for the multi-generational. You know, a house may not be in Seattle in particular, may not be accessible, but maybe you could put what they call a granny that the parents can now live in.

And the can either rent the house out to assist their costs or they can, you know, provide housing for caretaker or have their children live in the house.

So there's other ways of doing that besides, you know, your house.

@26:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

It's become a lot easier in just the last couple of months. The state of Washington anyway has really opened up the floodgates for allowing those ADUs and what not to be built in all parts of the state.

@26:36 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

And we talked about social isolation, you know, that's one of the things that people want to do in aging in place too, typically is they want to stay in the neighborhood.

They know their neighborhood, they know their adults. In the case of my mom down in Oregon, and she was the neighborhood matriarch.

Everybody looked after her. But you know, even she got to a point where it wasn't safe for her to live alone in.

@27:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

anymore.

@27:01 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

But she was able to see him for a long time simply because of that community that was around her.

@27:08 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

That's wonderful. Can you describe a particularly challenging case that you have worked on that you were able to place someone in a home that they could age in place?

@27:26 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, actually, when was challenging? The last year and a half was an elderly lady that lived in Bellevue and wanted to downsize and go into a smaller home.

But she had lived there for some time or husband had passed away. And she was what I would call a collector.

It wasn't necessarily a hoarder because it wasn't something house and to get her to declutter, as we call it, to sell the house, was impossible to do with her.

We actually had to hire a professional organizer to come in and work with her to get rid of stuff.

And the challenge to that actually was you can't do that repetitively day after day because it'll boxing things, putting it in the garage, and then take a day off to rest before they came back to continue on.

And then the day off, she decided to go down to the garage and start going through the boxes. So all the work that they had done for the couple of days before had to kind of be redone again.

But that ended up costing over $10,000, just to declutter the house so that she could vote.

@28:58 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Cool. Yes. We've seen that frequently. And it's a, it is. We talked about that. We've actually had an estate sale person on the podcast.

But the, it is, I can speak to it from my own perspective that when I look at my home, everything in it is part of my story.

So who, you know, it all has something story to it. And so it's really, really hard. And again, I'm, I, because I've run into it so much, I am just like, that goes, that goes, I'm scared of this.

To the point, I'm the other end. My husband's like, where did that go? Oh, I got rid of it.

Because I'm afraid of ending up in that situation.

@29:49 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah. Yeah. You know, tackling that's one of the things about getting prepared for aging in place or down the sky.

Like you said, too, is just to. Well, you know, not. But make bite-sized pieces of that, you know, take a closet, go through the closet, clean it out.

You know, that could be a weekend project or something, and then pick a room, do that, rather than trying to, if you look at the whole house, I mean, that's just overwhelming.

@30:18 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And one of the things that we suggested earlier in one of our other podcasts, if it has a story, if it has a meaning to you, rather than, first of all, trying to give it away to the family, because most of the younger generation, like China, they don't want it, take a picture of it, write the story, save the picture with the story, you know, and I mean, you could even publish a book if you wanted to go that far, but there are other ways to save the memories that are connected to items versus saving the item and getting to a point where you can downsize.

@30:59 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

So true, you know. And we put through that with my wife's mother. You know, we ended up with a whole set of China and silver because she had Sunday dinners with linen tablecloths and ice settings.

And we have paper plates and sit in the family room. And you can't get rid of that stuff now.

@31:21 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

No, you can't. It's really hard.

@31:23 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah. I mean, but that's something that was a prized possession for her. And you literally just have to say, no, thank you.

@31:31 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah. It's tough. It's very tough. My mother in line, it was a white, sheared beaver coat. And they were convinced.

I actually, someone offered me $100 for it. And my sister-in-law was kind of insulted by that. And it ended up traveling from person to person to person in the family.

I don't know where it ended up. It's not in my closet, but it just people don't wear furs anymore.

So the thing that you know was very valuable 20 years ago may not be valuable now. And so it is difficult.

How do you involve community resources and support networks when you're working with older adults? Do you have a list of people that you recommend or?

@32:27 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, for accessibility, for example, with a company that deformed with very long able environments. We have a virtual team that we work with.

We have interior designers. We have builders and remodelers. We have occupational therapists. We have financial planners. You know, all of those are people that are essential to that overall plan.

And are good to have a virtual team for, you know, to make sure to be able to. Santa's to refer particularly in referring, you know, you want to refer somebody that you trust and you know and you worked with before because referrals are a direct reflection of you.

@33:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Right.

@33:14 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

And if you go to the phone book, you know, you don't know what you're getting.

@33:18 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Mm-hmm. Very good.

@33:21 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Now what was you be your advice if somebody came up to you and said, boy, we'd really like to age in place.

What can we do?

@33:33 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I would say the first thing is, you know, take an inventory, look at your house, look at your costs, look at your finances, and then involve the family early so that it's everybody's involved in that planning process.

I said if you find out that you've got a house that isn't going to be able to do that, then you've got to make a different

plan. Do you sell the house and move into something else? Do you move away from the neighborhood? If you move out of the neighborhood, where are you going to go and what resources are there?

How do you get to the doctor? How do you get to the grocery store? How to take care of yourself?

So those are all parts of the aging in place wheel.

@34:23 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

It's a good way to think about it, definitely. So Tom, if you, people I'm sure will want to be contacting you.

@34:37 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

And so we will post your information on the podcast, but how can someone reach you if they have questions?

They can reach me either through my personal website on John O'Scott, which is TOM, M-I-A-I-Gonoscott.com, or they can look at our accessibility website at Able and

environments.com and we have a lot of good resources in there as far as accessibility and the difference between an adaptable house and an accessible house and a universe from design house and what does it mean.

@35:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Wonderful.

@35:18 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

No. And we've been doing a lot of work with the organizations right now too. One of the things that we're going to be doing tomorrow in fact is as part of our certification program we've been doing interviews with both people with disabilities, families with disabilities, builders, designers on design for age and in place and that's going to be part of the training program but we're also going down to autism as a disability.

@35:58 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

That is so hard.

@36:00 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah. that has very specific needs. I mean, one of the big things for accessibility for autism is to avoiding loud noises.

So it's building an environment around that with that money.

@36:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And making sure that, I mean, I know because of my son being disabled, he does not have autism, but I know a lot of people with children who have all kinds of disabilities that they have to figure out how to work around in their home.

And one of the issues with children with autism is frequently, I hear that they like to go out, go out.

Maybe they didn't tell mom and dad they wanted to go out. And they can figure out how to unlock the door, or they can figure out how to get into the cabinet where all the poison is.

@36:51 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

It's scary. It's very simple. Yeah. Yeah.

@36:55 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And actually the same thing happens with the elderly, but you can hear it.

@36:59 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, sure.

@37:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You know, I've... How do you protect them? Yeah.

@37:03 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, there's a lot of them that are escape artists. You have to, in fact, I know with an adult family home that I worked with, they had somebody that was on Medicaid there.

And I think that they were costing over $10,000 a month to on Medicaid. Because she was on the fight risk.

So there always had to be someone there, one on one with her in the house. There couldn't, that to be at least two, uh, two attendants.

So, you know, those are things that drive the cost.

@37:39 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So much to think about. So much of this is, uh, the nursing homes and retirement communities is, is for profit.

Are there things going on in the non-profit area that make the cost a little more doable? for more people?

@38:02 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, unfortunately, Dennis, I'd have to say no. I mean, it's a very expensive proposition, so most of them are for profit, but there's a lot of different ways of doing it.

Besides staying in your home, there's the concept of co-housing, where you actually have a community that's built by, the members, and they have housing.

In a lot of cases, it may be mix housing, so you have elderly as well as young families, and then they usually have a common area where they can meet and have meals and a few other things.

There's also things called naturally recurring communities where elderly people can choose to, you know, go in on a home to share so that they're there to take care of themselves, but there's a lot of options that are popping up to help different people.

trade that cost or help make just aging in place of possibility.

@39:04 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Are you seeing those in Washington State?

@39:08 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yes. Well, actually I've worked with the architect of California that is kind of the godfather of co-housing. And in fact, we were looking at some property on would be island for him to start one with being together, but they just finished going in for Angeles.

@39:27 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Hmm.

@39:28 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I know there's a couple in the Kirkland. I think there's actually quite a few around that big one in West Seattle.

So.

@39:38 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

It's a developer out of Michigan who had done something along those lines. And he actually it was an old golf course.

And he won the bid. There were a couple of different developers looking for it because he built a portion of it as co housing for people with disabilities.

And the homes, everything about the entire development was for, was affordable housing. So it made it easier, but the co-housing part was the part that I really was impressed with.

Not just for seniors, but for people with disabilities, especially like my son, who's higher functioning, he can do a lot by himself.

But there is something that, something he needs help with. And so the way this particular developer did this, I think he built four duplexes around a central area that had a kitchen.

And then each family that bought one of the duplex, you know, like one part of the duplex, they would contract with the different service providers that they needed.

And then those service providers would also work with the people next door for what they needed. And so it was less expensive for each other.

each individual family, but as a group, they all got what they needed. It was.

@41:05 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, that's one of the clients for able environments that we have is a nonprofit that is called community homes.

And that is put together so that parents can go together and community homes buys the home. They try to have, you know, at least six bedrooms.

So that adults with mental disabilities can live on their own. So they help manage the home and buy the home.

But there's, you know, like, as always, you know, a cost for the family members for that.

@41:47 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But that's the thing. The co-housing that I've seen has been very expensive for families. Yes. And again, that's tough for people who.

don't have that kind of money.

@42:02 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely takes, like I said, you know, it's much easier to do proactively than reactively. When the time comes, if you're not prepared, it's overwhelming.

@42:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

What do you know, anything about what happens in other countries, how they deal with these issues beyond knowing that, like, for instance, in Japan, at least, I lived there for a couple of years, the family, it was, they knew, the oldest son came first and he was going to take care of it.

He got the home, but he also got mom and dad with it. And that sort of thing, I don't know if it's still that way, but a lot of countries are multi-generational.

There's, they know that they're going to be taken care of by their family. But any other things that you've seen or heard of in other countries that we might want to do, yeah.

@43:00 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

You know, like I said, Japan is way ahead of the curve in universal design. They've been adopting that for some time.

And every country is really involved in it because there's changing population dynamic. It isn't just the US, it's a global thing.

And every country is looking at it. The World Health Organization is very much involved in trying to do planning for their aging population.

@43:32 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So it's a key topic. Good.

@43:37 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I don't have any more questions. Is there anything else you wanted to say, Tom, before we sign up?

@43:49 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

You know, Ben, there's probably I could talk for a couple hours on some of these issues, but I think, you know, we've been a lot of the key topics.

Oh, I know. One thing I'd like to say is that one of the things about aging in place is not just the ability to live in the house.

I always used to tell them my classes that, you know, our aging effects are housing and our housing effects are aging.

You know, as a, you have to be able to, you know, A on those, uh, the activities of daily living, be able to carry your own finances.

But it also decreases your ability to take care of your house. You know, there may be things that are planned that needs a new roof and needs to be painted.

You, you, you can't get on a ladder anymore. So houses will tend to deteriorate with deferred maintenance. And in turn, once, you know, you've got a house that's got a leaky roof and you start getting the mold in the house and that concern is going to affect the health.

So that's another consideration is, you know, if I'm going to stay in my house, how Am I going to take care of that house?

@45:02 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Absolutely. Yeah, we've seen a lot of houses like that, haven't we? The estate sale?

@45:09 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah.

@45:10 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I always love the don't get near as much money as you would hope trying to sell it, right?

@45:20 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah.

@45:21 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So yeah, anyways.

@45:25 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, one of the things that I think was an amazing statistic that I looked at is that we tend to be living longer now, which impacts how long your finances are going to last, but also impacts how long you're going to live with a disability.

I like to say sometimes we're living longer but dying slower, which means we'd get to expand it. But the number of that.

The population over 100 has grown 65.8% over the last few decades where the world population has only grown 36.3%.

@46:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Wow. So it's a pretty amazing, in fact the population over 85 is one of the fastest during segments of the population right now.

If you really want to make sure that you and your loved ones are have a plan are protected, aren't left having to deal with things in a stressful situation.

@46:42 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah. So, you know, there's a safety net, you know, government safety net, which is Medicaid, which if you have nothing, you can fall back on that.

But the problem with that is that when we looked at the fact that by 2034. you know, the population over 65 is going to be created in the population under 18.

Well, you know, the population under 65 are the ones that are going to be paying for the Medicaid. And if you just look at the statistical change, where that money is coming from is going to be a big economic burden.

@47:27 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, thanks so much for being here, Tom. This is a great topic and we appreciate your time. Yeah. So we've talked about your website.

Is there a phone number people could call you if they wanted to talk to you about this?

@47:40 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, they can give me a call anytime. So 206-617-3935. And, or you can also call my partner very long with able environments and his number is 206-612-3477.

And we would. I'd love to help you in that process.

@48:03 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Do you put on classes or workshops for people who are not in the real estate business?

@48:12 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, actually we've done quite a few. I've given some classes at the U-Dub. I know Ben Ray has given a lot of keynote addresses.

In fact, before you got into real estate, you as a motivational speaker. So we do a lot. I've got another class coming up next month, I think, or the Kirkland Senior Council.

And we try to reach out as much as we can.

@48:44 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Wonderful.

@48:47 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, thanks again, Tom.

@48:49 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I appreciate you being here.

@48:51 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

That's it for episode 14. I love the heading your home, how to right size your episode 14 of... Getting your badge.

That's it for episode 14 of Getting Your Edge, How to Write Size, Your Home and Life Podcast. Hope you can see us on YouTube and that's it for today.

We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Okay.

@49:24 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Good thing we can add it. I know.

@49:28 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Thank you, Tom.

@49:30 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

That was wonderful. That was a hard work, guys.

@49:32 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah. That was really, really wonderful.

@49:35 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Thank you so much. I got to leave the...

@49:38 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I mean, because you're right. You could talk about this for hours and hours and hours. So, but you were someone when we came up with this idea that I definitely wanted to to bring on.

@49:49 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I'm glad you reached that.

@49:51 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah, it's good to see you too. So, why did you go from Brenda Issaquah and you for particular reason or?

@49:58 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

No, I actually went straight to Yes, I call it from Linwood.

@50:02 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I thought you were in Redmond for a while.

@50:05 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

No, never. No, never.

@50:07 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

For some reason, this whole time, I thought you've been in Redmond.

@50:10 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

And you did the OK.

@50:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All right, well, there you have it.

@50:14 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, a large part was the managing broker. You know, it felt very good with good, but you know, the brokerage really has nothing to do with it.

I sold the house. We closed on December 31st in Blaine. And they've sold another house in Chehalos. We've sold a house in Port Laidlow, and we're all over the place.

So I mean, most of your businesses repeat and referral. You kind of go where your clients are, rather than work a geographical area.

@50:53 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Right. Well, tell Sandy again. I said hi, and it was wonderful to see you, and we will post. your information on the the podcast so people can reach out to you.

@51:06 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

So, okay. Here's the use the able address I think that's under the best one because that's really focusing on the.

@51:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And what was that called again?

@51:15 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I'm going to write it. Able environments.

@51:18 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay.

@51:19 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Dot com.

@51:20 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah, yes. Place clock hour class.

@51:32 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I'll send you a link on that. We're actually trying to set one up. The one of the reasons we're doing this.

National training program is that I don't know if you knew you're not, but very and I designed and implemented multiple Northwest multiple listing services accessibility criteria.

@51:55 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, did you?

@51:57 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Well, I not know that. Yeah, we spent a couple of years on that. working with the real estate standards organization so that it was consistent and that's been picked up by several multiple listings around the country and part of the challenge of that is teaching realtors how to use that feature and the importance of using that you know rather than So people that are out there actually looking to that and find that kind of house I see I don't know enough about it.

@52:29 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I mean I look at that section and I'm like, you know, my house doesn't meet that criteria So it'll be interesting.

I really would like to take your clock hour class and any other trainings that you have for realtors definitely in mind so And you were talking about the co-housing was it community house?

Was that the name of the organization?

@52:51 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, community house. That's a co-housing and that's just adult mentally disabled children

@53:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, my son. I mean, he's very high functioning, but he has lots of issues and that. And so, ideally, we would like to be able to see him be able to fit into a community like that.

@53:12 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah.

@53:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Because that we don't have an answer for that one yet. Yeah, I believe this house and the house is too big and the yard is too big and we would like to live at the beach and he doesn't want to.

And so we just go around and around with nothing ever getting done, which is very fresh.

@53:30 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Yeah, it's particularly tough when you've got adult children planning for that long term because obviously you're going to be gone a lot.

Before they are typically what's going to happen after that. One of the several of the clients that we've had over the last year with Abel have been parents with children with profound difficulties, you know, cerebral palsy.

And we've found accessible homes for them, but in a lot of cases, we have to remind them that at some point in time, they're not going to be able to pick their child up and carry them around the house.

That that baby is going to be a big person.

@54:18 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Right.

@54:19 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Before long. So, you know, look, don't look for the needs right now. Look for the needs. You know, 10, 20 years from now.

@54:27 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Mm hmm. Well, thanks. Thank you. Tom.

@54:32 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I really appreciate you being here.

@54:34 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And we'll send you links to both the YouTube and the podcast. Please feel free. We'd love for you to share.

So, okay.

@54:44 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I know one of the trees I thought I was going on the way. Never got to was we're doing these classes now the clock number classes.

But they're in Washington only and we're teaching, you know, 10 or 20 people at a time. And it just doesn't scale with the need.

So we're trying to develop this national certification program so that we can teach hundreds of people this need because it's, it is very timely right now.

Or the equity and inclusion part of it.

@55:17 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Are you going through the realtors association to try to push that?

@55:22 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

No, we're going to do it outside of an hour.

@55:26 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Just like the avenues that that you're looking at like federal.

@55:32 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

AARP or no, actually it'll be like the real estate negotiation institute. Okay. That's an independent body. We want to stay independent so that we've got more say and what we do.

I know that, you know, once you go inside of NAR, you kind of. Yeah.

@55:52 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And that's true with any federal that said it. Well, when you when you figure that one out. Let. I mean, because my son is part of a group of people.

And it's not gigantic, like people with autism, but it's called the IR. I'm trying to remember. It's not infantile or have some disease anymore.

It's paroxisomal disease foundation or something like that. And so, but they have meetings every two years somewhere in the United States at this point in time, although this was a disease that there wasn't even a name for it when my son was born.

And so I'm sure they would love to hear or know people, realtors, that they deal with that we could definitely get it, help you get it out there.

Yeah, that'd be great.

@56:54 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

That's what we're trying to do is work with a lot of organizations. There's another group I know that is called the IR.

here in Now Project and most of them are paralysis type of thing, but most of them are quadriplegics. And they were all, you know, the reason they got to be quadriplegics is they were all mountain wikers or, you know, skiers or a few other things.

And the here and now basically is a group that they meet with that says, you know, we're not feeling sorry for ourselves.

We've got, we're here and now this is what life is.

@57:31 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So let's make the best of it. Well, that's a positive ad.

@57:35 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

I don't know if I could do that one. I'm just telling you, Kathy and Karen come to mind. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I say in a split second.

@57:44 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah.

@57:46 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All right.

@57:47 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, your certification classes, are they online or are they in person or they will be they will be online.

@57:57 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

It'll be where they call a synchronous training. So that's. I'm going to shoot three.

@58:01 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Dennis and I, Jim will be.

@58:03 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Good.

@58:05 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I'll let you know the in-person clock hour one.

@58:08 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

In fact, we've been doing, we're trying to do them hybrid because we have been doing them online. But we want to get doing them more in person.

But we get more clients if we do it, you know, online. Yeah, so we can do it hybrid.

@58:25 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

We'll do that. Okay.

@58:27 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Okay. Okay.

@58:29 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay. Thanks again, Tom.

@58:32 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Appreciate it.

@58:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All right. Take care.

@58:36 - Tom Minty (Fathom)

Bye.

@58:37 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Bye. Bye. Okay.

@58:43 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I think that was really good. I mean, I know he's kind of competition, but he has information we don't have.

And maybe we can, you know, go through his classes and join his certification and benefit from it.

@58:58 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

But he's a really good guy. So anyway, did he say he's living in Issaquant?

@59:04 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

No, he lives in Wood and Bill.

@59:07 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Wood and Bill?

@59:08 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay. Well, don't worry lives.

@59:09 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah, I can say the Lawful Senior Center putting on a class like that.

@59:14 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Actually, you know, that's why I wanted to take that other class that what did I say the cost on that one was and I.

We just got to sell some houses. Yeah. I figured to move. I need to leave here no later than 10 minutes, but to change companies and get new signage is going to cost about $1,800.

Okay. You get the signage and for me to pay off the desk fees and whatnot I have. So I'm talking to Jim more about it, but you know, I just keep hoping that something will come in that will help us achieve that.

And because I saw Craig last week and I looked at him and he just looked awful. He was not well.

@1:00:10 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

No, he was not well. He has one-armed cane thing.

@1:00:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah. And I just beyond the fact that he drives me crazy, he's just not well. And I think the whole functioning of that office reflects it.

@1:00:28 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah.

@1:00:29 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

It's just not there's not a high power, high energy. Let's go do something kind of a feel about that office anymore.

And that's what I get. Did you watch the did you look at that newsletter from Jason Samard? There's a video in there.

And there were two things about the video. They have a podcast too. Jason Samard does. And I noticed it on one of the other videos that they have captioning.

That they put into their video like words and different thing. I don't know how they do it It was pretty cool and then he and the guy that is part of his team on his podcasting They had a sign behind behind them that says live It was in the on sign and and I looked and they're on Amazon for like 30 bucks So if you and I want to set up a room where we are We kind of tried to do that and put the microphones in they had microphones on stands just like we both have And then had that sign that was kind of a cool thing.

It looked a little bit more professional than the zoom idea, but I Love for you to listen to that video because it was a good it was on networking and I actually and And it was Jason talking about it and you know He's probably in his 30s is my guess so he's still out there partying But the idea is behind it.

We're still good, you know, and can be utilized by everybody. But he was at a networking thing and he talks about how you go about networking.

And it, I am at the point where I am suspending my disbelief and I'm going to do what people suggest until it works.

That's just what I'm up to. Did you have any luck with your buyer?

@1:02:22 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

No, she was not available and to be honest, she's not going to be available next week with Mother's Day in there.

@1:02:30 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So. Are you sure of that one?

@1:02:34 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

No, I'm not. But. Well, you had. I looked. I only could find two places for her to go look at.

There just wasn't much there.

@1:02:46 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

The building that she liked, does it have to?

@1:02:49 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I mean, let's send out letters. Well, that's what I'm thinking too. Just say, hey, she's lost out on two.

We have a buyer who had two places for sale that. She couldn't get so are you interested? I absolutely.

I guess we could just ask Jane for a farm of that place and just go with the two bedroom 1.75 bathroom.

@1:03:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah. People that have been there and longer, you know, don't send it to the brand new ones, but the other two, I'm happy to help you put that together.

@1:03:21 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay. Okay. That's a great idea.

@1:03:24 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All right.

@1:03:25 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, no. Now, one thing with with that, if we did and they came to us would do something like you would be the seller agent and I would be the buyer agent.

@1:03:38 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah, we could do that. Or we could offer them a discount. I don't care because it's, it's still a better deal.

You know, it's a higher price than my condos. Yeah. Okay.

@1:03:55 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

We'll talk to you later.

@1:03:57 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All right.

@1:03:58 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

You take care.

@1:03:59 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Bye.