That transition to senior care or retirement tends to be a struggle not just for the seniors involved but also for their families. The process of selling highly appreciated homes, real estate, or businesses can cause family friction and misunderstandings, making this period of time particularly paralyzing. In this episode, Brett Swarts speaks with Ted Gottlieb—Senior’s Real Estate Specialist® and The Senior’s Learning Institute Founder. Ted shares with us how he is helping Baby Boomers and their families during this transition, tapping on the value of estate planning, wills and trusts, and the likes. He also talks about the financial and emotional challenges that occur in between this shift and how he is accommodating the seniors’ needs in the process. Tune into this conversation for more insights about senior transition and receiving maximum value and return on your assets.
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Overcoming The Challenges During Senior Transition With Ted Gottlieb
I’m excited for this next episode with Ted Gottlieb. He is a senior housing specialist and he has a heart for serving those who are elderly or getting older and looking to transition from their homes to perhaps senior care. He is a real estate agent. He sells about 30 homes a year and he’s one of only 113 people across the nation who have this particular senior designation, with training for helping to be an advocate for their clients. You’re getting a lot of valuable tips here. He’s talking about estate planning, how to reduce friction with families through the estate plan, how to be an advocate. If you’re a real estate agent, read this show, how to be an advocate for your client and add value and so much more. I look forward to any comments and thoughts on this show. With that, enjoy the show.
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Our guest sells about 30 homes or so annually and he’s focused in the senior real estate in the St. Louis, Missouri area. He’s a licensed real estate broker. He’s also a certified senior advisor, a senior real estate specialist and senior housing professional. He’s probably the only one who have all of these designations. He’s truly a niche specialist when it comes to helping folks who are transitioning, selling home, maybe going into senior housing. He also is the Founder of Senior Learning Institute and also TrustInTed.com. Please welcome to the show, Ted Gottlieb.
Brett, thank you very much. I’m looking forward to it.
Ted, tell us a little bit about your background, your story and also your current focus.
I’ve been a licensed real estate agent since 2003. I became a broker in 2005. Though I don’t act as a broker today, I wanted to have that designation just in case I wanted to go out on my own one day. I started out as an investor speculator. I used to buy and flip homes. Normally, I didn’t do anything to them, then got involved with new construction and historic reconstruction or preservation in the St. Louis market. I sold about 100 new homes over the years.
When the market shifted in 2008, I needed to reinvent myself. I decided to get back involved in traditional real estate as a traditional agent would, working with buyers and sellers. I struggled there for a little bit because I was used to having people come to me and all of a sudden, I had to find them and there was a whole lot of real estate agents out there. Right alone that time when I was reinventing myself, I came across a gentleman at the health club of all places and his name was Al. He was one of those old throwback guys. Fedora, soak underwear, cashmere jacket type guys that they don’t make anymore. We hit it off and he became a close friend, an extension of the family and a local grandparent to my kids. I watched him be a totally independent individual from three story walk up to an elevator building to a garden apartment, independent living, assisted living, hospice and then death.
While he was still very active, the light bulb went off and I said, “I thoroughly love being around older adults and seniors. Why don’t I focus on the older adult niche?” I went out and got a variety of designations that gave me additional information. I realized that I needed to learn more, so I’ve got more designation and more initials in my name at this point and thoroughly enjoy advocating and assisting folks during this period of time that can often be paralyzing. It’s a whole lot of fun. It’s very satisfying. It’s a long process, but a very enjoyable process as well.
Tell us a little bit more about your background. I want you to go back to your childhood. We’ve all been given certain strengths in life. Some people call them superpowers. I call them God given gifts. We’ve been given these certain gifts and maybe there’s one that sticks out for you that you were given. I want you to correlate how that connects to how you help seniors today. What was the gift that Ted was given and how does that help you help seniors today?
I was born with a lot of personality. My mother wished that if I had a son, he would be a lot like me and her wish came true. It’s been challenging, but I’ve always had a lot of personality. I’ve always had an opinion and I carry that to this day. The other gift that I had was an Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben was that older uncle that I thoroughly loved and admired. I lived in Philly and he was in New York. We used to go see them all the time. There was that certain bond that I had with him and looking back on him and one other individual, I was always attracted to the older adults. This finally came to form in 2010 or so but it’s always been there. I’ve always gotten along and appreciated being with the older folks. It’s interesting how it’s come full circle.
If you can do more than what you're getting paid for, the customer is going to be happier. Click To TweetWhen someone is successful as you are, what I found, especially those who I interviewed on this show, it’s exactly that. It tends to come full circle. The key is to have the courage to dive into it when you see those signs and you’re given those opportunities, then to go all-in. Burn the ships from what you did before and then you can serve in your best God given gifts and your best strengths. Ted, with that being said, part of our readers are Baby Boomers. They’re struggling with highly appreciated homes, real estate or businesses and they’re selling. Part of that is we’re helping them to defer capital gains taxes using different tax deferral strategies. The other side of it often is the personal reasons for selling or the emotional transitions. You’re a big part of all of that. What is the single biggest challenge that you’ve seen in general for Baby Boomers as they’re making a transition between a house to senior care or even retirement to something else? What is the biggest thing that they’re faced with now in your experience over the last few years and how do you best help them?
I’m visualizing the Baby Boomers being the children of the seniors that I’m working. That’s my foundation there.
It could be a both too. Because it could be the Baby Boomer son or daughter who’s taking care of their senior parents. That’s a great designation there. Talk a little bit about both. How are you helping the families who are helping their parents’ transition and vice versa, how are you helping the seniors’ transition with their families, the Baby Boomer kids?
You’d be surprised how many kids are not involved. That maybe because they don’t want to be or maybe because mom and dad don’t want them to be. They want to shelter them from that but there’s that family dynamic. It’s typically the daughter that’s helping out. In my parent’s case, she’s got two sons, so she has no choice. It’s one of those things where there are some kids who are involved and there are some kids who prefer not to be involved. I’ve had a situation where someone approached me. They’re seven siblings. One of them is here in the St. Louis area, the rest of them are spread all over the place. Let’s just say the siblings aren’t playing nice together.
It’s becoming a challenge as to what to do with mom and dad. One of them has power of attorney, but they don’t do a lot of estate planning either. That’s one of the things that I’m finding is that, looking back, one of things I’m going to do for my children is make sure that I have an estate plan and a trust in place in order to avoid probate, to make sure that my wishes are adhered to and help reduce the chances of having that friction between family members that can break families apart.
A lot of it comes down to what mom and dad are going to leave. Who’s going to split it? Who’s going to handle what? Who’s taking care of mom and dad? I’m living in St. Louis. Let’s say mom and dad are here and I’m doing all the grunt work. Meanwhile, I’ve got a brother who’s living someplace else who doesn’t appreciate what I’m doing, how I’m doing it and wants to have a lot of feedback, but he’s not getting his hands dirty. Those dynamics come all the time. There is a tremendous amount of care managers that act as a neutral third party to help families get through those processes. You’ve got that dynamic, which is always there.
I had a client who passed away. The daughter was not involved at all, but my client wanted to maximize the return on the house for his legacy and give her as much money as he possibly could. He made a short-sighted decision. Instead of selling the house in its current condition, I had a contract on it. Let’s say it was $175,000. He decided he wanted to fix it up so that he could maximize the return. He ended up passing away during the renovation process. The daughter came in town and decided that she wanted to do things a little bit differently. I’m no longer in the equation. I spent about six months working with this gentleman, being his advocate. Now, that’s gone. That’s fine because we were doing what was in his best interest. Meanwhile, he’s now upside down on that property compared to what he would have been had he taken the money upfront. I’m not a big fan of selling as is, but there are certain particular times when it makes sense in this happen to be one of those times. You’ve got that going on as well.
I’m still a kid to my parents. I’m approaching 60 and I’m probably still little Teddy who created havoc back in the day. Though there’s a level of respect and they want my opinion, they’re still the parents. A lot of parents want to maintain control and you maintain control in a variety of different ways. One of them is by doing is what you want to do and maybe keeping the kids out of the loop. The problem is that sometimes the kids have to clean up the mess when it’s done. When you can communicate well, and you have that dynamic where it’s a win-win for everybody, that’s the best way to go. It doesn’t happen all the time and it’s sometimes more infrequent that you would hope it would be.
Keeping communication lines open, understanding roles and responsibilities for different siblings who may be taking on a heavier role. It’s easier to criticize from a distance when you’re not in the day-to-day challenges. It’s easy not to have the stress and think it’s an easy solution, but you’re not there. If you’re the sibling who lives out of state, having a lot of grace and a lot of humility to say, “You guys are on the ground. How can I support?” versus criticize and then having a good estate plan in place to make sure everything’s clear and laid out so people aren’t having to face probate.
If the client's going to be more successful, then you're going to be more successful. Click To TweetI’m this weird hybrid because I’m a real estate agent and I earn my living by selling real estate, but I’m also a certified senior advisor with a fiduciary responsibility for my clients. I walk in and I ask for permission to take my real estate agent hat off and we talked about the plan, “What is your plan?” The first thing I said is, “Do we have a plan? Where are we going to go? Do we have a plan? Do we know if we can afford it? Do you have an estate plan established? Do you have a financial advisor established? What is in your best interest? We want to make sure that you can afford to wherever it is that you’re thinking about going. We want to determine what the equity is in the house because that’s part of the equation, but we work as a team.” I’ve got several elder law estate planning attorneys that I refer to and they refer back. I’ve got financial advisors and we sit down together. Oftentimes I’m part of that conversation because I’ve built that relationship with that older adult who may not have an advocate here who wants somebody that’s going to be there to provide the support that they so desperately wanted and need.
Being their advocate and an adding value beyond just being a real estate agent. You’re a senior housing specialist who’s not only selling their house and maximizing the value and getting as many offers as you can, but you’re helping them with the transition of the estate. Getting an estate planning attorney or making sure you have the budget, or making sure that they have a clear exit plan for where they’re going to be in life as it pertains maybe to their healthcare needs and to their finances. Shift to the healthcare needs and walk us through some of the challenges you’re seeing there as far as somebody who’s wanting to sell house. Maybe they’ve been there for 20, 30, 40, 50 years and now needing that additional care. Walk us through some of those challenges there as it pertains to finances as well as it pertains to the emotional change that happens there.
I was in a conference with a St. Louis University Doctorate who was talking about loneliness and how it impacts our cognitive skills, dementia and all those things. Bottom line is, I do a lot of seminars here in St. Louis. A seminar we’re doing is on aging in place. The numbers tend to differ but most people, and the number tends to be 90% or more of individuals want to stay in place forever. They want to stay put and they want to go out feet first. You hear it all the time. Sometimes it’s appropriate a lot of times that it is and when someone wants to stay put and age in place, then I’m there to provide them the resources that they need to do that safely. We’re talking about aging in place strategies, grab bars, walk in showers, stair climbers, medic alert systems, all those things that need to be put in place for them to be successful there. What ends up happening if the house is not set up properly, we find that they fall and have all sorts of issues that lead to medical issues that tend to be the kiss of death.
I’ve got a 92-year-old father who lives in Florida on a totally ceramic floor who doesn’t necessarily have the balance that he needs. You trip on a throw rug that doesn’t need to be there. Next thing you know, you’re breaking your hip, an elbow, your head, which leads to even worse situations and sometimes death. You try to be proactive in regard to those things, but my mom likes the way that the throw rug looks in front of the sink. Even though dad may trip on it every time he walks by it, it’s not registering. We have those conversations. Let’s say someone’s able to age in place. Age in place is a term that’s shifted, because aging in place can mean aging in place wherever you are. Aging in place in your home, in your independent living community, in an assisted living community, so that you don’t have to go to a skilled community. Aging in place is staying put wherever you are. For this conversation, let’s say that we’re going to stay in our house.
The problem is that sometimes it becomes isolating. People drive when they shouldn’t be driving. Sometimes they can’t drive anymore. Oftentimes, they need help going for shopping. There are no wellness checks. There’s not a neighbor checking in to make sure things are okay. I’ve had several situations where I’ve been involved with older folks who could eat off one baked chicken during the week. They’re not eating well. You’ve got aging in place, but are you aging in place well? Are you lonely? Are you doing the things that you need to do in order to be successful and to be happy? Are you joyful? There’re all those things. Aging in place can make sense, but sometimes aging in place in your home is not the best place to be. Social interaction and proper nutrition are so important. You have all these things that are so important that you may not be able to do on your own at home, and you may not be willing to pay for it to have somebody come in.
That’s the next step. Let’s say you need companion care. There’s nobody in town to help or the kids are working all the time and they’re not available between the hours of 8:00 and 5:00. One of the kids comes over for dinner, but you need somebody there to engage and to make sure that you’re toileting, bathing, eating well, doing your laundry. I’ve got one client that’s got a stair climber. They only use it in order to be able to take the laundry up and down the stairs. That’s what they use it for. Being set up for success is important.
Let’s say that you need additional help. There are homecare companies that come in. These are what I call custodial care companies. These don’t provide medical care. They’re CNAs potentially but they’re companions and they will help with light housekeeping and maybe make some meals. They’ll play card with you and do all those things. Maybe take you shopping, those are companions. Depending on the market that you’re in, they typically charge between $20, $25, $30 an hour.
Let’s say you’re doing that 8 hours a day times 5 days a week or 7 days a week. Those numbers start to add up. Can you afford to do that or are you better off going to an independent or assisted living community where your meals are prepared and you have more social interaction and all those things? It starts to become a math problem. I find oftentimes, folks would rather stay where they are to a certain point. When you get to the point where you’re needing continual care and 24-hour care, you start doing the math there.
The math is pretty obvious. You’re better off going into an assisted living community. Again, not a lot of people are excited about that. Some people thrive in that environment and other people choose not to go into that environment. They don’t want to be around people. They’ve been around people long enough and they don’t necessarily want the dynamic that goes along with that. You’ve got the other problem, “Where do I go? What’s the right community for me?” There are national companies and local companies that do nothing but help seniors and their children find the right community for mom and dad.

Challenges During Senior Transition: Having that dynamic where you and your client are communicating well and where it’s a win-win for everybody is the best way to go.
I tend to refer to some local, what are called transition coordinators that know the good, the bad and the ugly of every community, every level of skill in the St. Louis metropolitan area. These people are nationwide that can tell you and answer the questions and ask the questions that you don’t know to ask. One of the worst things that can happen is you go to the wrong place the first time and maybe the second time. You’ve got the trauma of leaving your home where you’re comfortable and you have all the memories to go to a community that doesn’t work out for a variety of different reasons. It could be socio economic or you don’t like the food, a bad location, whatever it is. There are all sorts of reasons why it doesn’t work out the first time.
Having somebody coach you through that so that you can avoid the mistake of picking the wrong community is something that’s essential and it’s a free service offered to the individual. The person who helps you find the right community gets paid a small commission of sorts if you end up going to that community. There are all sorts of resources out there that that are worthwhile taking advantage of, and having someone who’s got my background in your local area makes all the sense in the world. If you don’t have those resources, I can refer them to you. It will be my pleasure to do that.
I love your heart for service and your attention to detail here and all the tough questions and good questions that you’re asking. There’s such a need for senior housing, senior care and transition. I feel like the education is not out there or we’re not looking for it. We need to be taking the approach in being educated, proactive, and setting a plan, but also supportive of one another because it’s new to everybody. Essentially, you’re a son or a daughter and your parents are going through for the first time. You’ve never faced it before and they’ve never faced it before either. Unless it was their parents, years before that. Thank you for what you’re doing. It is a great service. Ted, what’s the most rewarding part of what you do?
Let’s talk about the sandwich generation too. Those kids that also have younger children, but are still working with mom and dad, because that makes it even more challenging for their daughter or son who’re dealing with that. What’s rewarding to me is going in and sitting down and having the conversations and enjoying their company. I sat down with a with a couple that’s going to a continual care community here in the St. Louis area. He is a retired professor. She’s a fine artist and we’re sitting talking about a variety of different things that have nothing thing to do with the real estate transaction. Nothing to do with their transition, but sitting and enjoying their experiences in life and having fun. I get more joy out of that than almost anything else.
What’s intriguing to me too is maximizing when it comes to selling the house. It’s helping them get through the transition itself and getting them organized. When it comes to selling the house, it’s doing the work that needs to be done to maximize their return. Sometimes the money isn’t important. I had one particular client say to me, “The money’s not important and we want to sell it as is and get out of here.” I helped them do that. We ended up selling it for about $40,000, $50,000 more than we would have, had I not been part of the equation, because we got the investors to bid against one another.
We also were able to get the investors to agree to leave all the property in the house so that they didn’t have a disposal fee. We had all of that, but where it comes into play is making sure that I can maximize their return. I try to avoid the as is sale. Very convenient sale, but I’ve had clients potentially between, let’s say $20,000 and $90,000 on the table. It was suggested to them that they should sell it to a flipper or an investor. It was easy and it was cashed and it was quick. Yes, all that is true, but that investor is trying to buy it for as little as possible and more than likely that investor is going to flip it to somebody else and make a quick $15,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000.
I’ve seen it happen. The most pride I have is being able to get as much as I can out of the property, whether the money is important because the money goes for the care and the money goes for the legacy. If I can get somebody $20,000, $30,000, $50,000, $90,000 more, I can help them stay in that assisted living community or independent living community longer because their money is going to last longer. That’s one of the little gripes I’ve had with some senior living communities is that their marketing people are so, I don’t want to incentivize, but there’s such demand to fill the vacancies and to keep the beds filled. Because their census is important that oftentimes getting people in seems to be more important than the process itself and maximizing the return that that individual is going to maintain.
I have said to the community or two, “I understand the importance of getting them in, and I appreciate that, but your retention rate is also very important, because there’s another level of pressure there, you need to retain your clients. If I can get more for the house, and they can stay in your community for two or three years longer, aren’t we all better off?” The answer is, “Yes.” Part of what I do, as with age comes wisdom. With age comes the ability of saying things that you truly feel in a in a reasonable tone. You’re able to hold people to task and say, “It’s not about you. It’s not about me, it’s about them. How are we going to maximize their return? Everyone’s going to win here, but let’s think outside the box.”
As I like to add value, I challenge the people that I refer to and the people that I surround me as, “How are you going to add value?” Adding value in what we do is so important. Anybody can sell a house. “How am I going to add value? What is my value-added statement? What do I do differently than anybody else?” I focus on seniors. I’ve got the resources and I’ve got almost twenty years of experience. These are also the things that I’m going to do to help you sell your house for more. There’s a variety of techniques that I use that are very effective and most folks will buy into. Some are stubborn and some don’t. Unfortunately, most of the time they sell the house for less than what they could have, had they taken the advice up front and you’re not always successful at that. It’s all about adding value.
Many people tend to leave a mess behind without realizing they're doing it. Click To TweetWhen you can do more than what you’re getting paid for, the customer is going to be happier, the client’s going to be more successful, you’re going to have more success and it is truly about adding value beyond just the practical part of the external need, which may be sell a house. What are the internal needs? What are the questions that are asking? Are they having a plan and a budget and state plan? In transitioning all that, who is their advocate? Those are all things above and beyond what separates you from the competition.
I would like to make sure that we include the value of estate planning, trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney and all of that because that’s a huge thing that a lot of people overlook. That ends up being problematic at the end.
What are some advice and tips on that for our readers?
Typically, we have a will and a will is a living document and a have power of attorney might be involved. A power of attorney might be a child and we have HIPAA releases and we have all those things. We have living wills and all of that. Having that all in place is great, but when someone passes away, if there’s not a trust involved, it’s very probable here in the state that is going to go to probate. Probate doesn’t stop just because you have a will. The will is there while you’re living and the powers of attorney are there while you’re living, but probate becomes an issue. probate means basically that the courts get involved. There are fees that are involved. There are delays that are involved in regard to dispose of the property.
For instance, mom passes away. I’m her power of attorney. That power of attorney is no good anymore. There’s a house there that I would like to sell and get rid of. I can’t do that until it goes through probate and I get permission by the courts to sell the house. What happens to that money is not necessarily going in my pocket, it may have to go somewhere else until all that is settled. There’s a timeliness factor of it as well. I know enough to be dangerous, but the trusts make sense for a lot of people, but not for everybody.
The idea of having a trust and having everything determine where things are going to go is great. It’s also great for Medicaid planning, as well as asset protection planning and all those things. That comes into place, but it avoids probate, which is critical even though it seems expensive up front. Here in the St. Louis area, depending upon the attorneys that you go to and what how detailed of a plan is required. Let’s say the range for an estate plan here could be anywhere between $2,000 to $8,000 to $10,000. That’s on the high end, but figure roughly $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 is what you’re going to spend to put a trust together here in St. Louis.
You’re going to spend 2, 3, 4 times that dealing with probate and everything else that goes along with that. Oftentimes people will say, “I don’t want a trust because it’s too expensive.” No, it’s too expensive not to do that. It’s too expensive financially and emotionally and for the dynamics of what you leave behind and your legacy. If there’s one piece of advice I would have is that get yourself as affiliated with a great financial advisor. Team that financial advisor up with a good elder law attorney or estate planning attorney, one of the two, there is a difference in twist in regard to what they do. Focus there and build your team and you’ll feel much better in knowing that everything’s taken care of and your legacy is more of a positive one than those that leave a mess behind. A lot of people leave a mess behind but they don’t realize that they’re doing it. You can’t blame folks for that, but I’d say take a good look at that and talk to your professionals and help preserve your legacy.
If you don’t have a living trust yet, get on that right away. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Are you ready for the lightning round?
Sure, bring it.

Challenges During Senior Transition: Add value beyond just the practical part of the external need.
Favorite book you’ve read in the past six months?
It’s going to sound bad but Downsizing Guide by Ingrid Sullivan.
Favorite podcast perhaps you’re listening to that you like right now?
I’m going to say yours.
Thanks, especially if you’re on the show. The best place to vacation in Missouri during the summer?
A lot of people will go to the Lake of the Ozarks. It’s a big lake, a couple hours outside of St. Louis. Quite honestly, a lot of people come to St. Louis and vacation in the city of St. Louis. They go to the Cardinals’ games and enjoy Downtown St. Louis, which is becoming a lot more revitalize.
Have you seen the Netflix show called Ozarks?
Yes.
For our readers who are not from Missouri, is it pretty close to some stuff that’s going on out there?
Try to surround yourself with good people. It helps you sleep well at night. Click To TweetI would say none of that stuff is going on that I know of, but it’s very scenic. It’s beautiful. The lakes can get crowded. There are some smaller lakes as well. We’re not big lake people, so we don’t go down too much but people love it. They’ve been doing it for generations. There are a lot of people that love to fish and love to boat here in the area. Being from the East Coast, that’s news to me. We would go to the shore or the beach versus going to the lakes. We didn’t have lakes that we knew of back then.
Last question for the lightning round. Since you said you’re from Philadelphia, Steelers or Eagles?
Eagles. I’m born and raised in the City of Philly and I always say that since we were on the right side of the state that Pittsburgh was on the wrong side of the state, and being a Penn Stater versus a Pitt guy, the big rivalry back in the day when I was in school, was Penn State versus Pitt. Pittsburgh is a lovely area, but doesn’t compare to the fine culture of the city of Philadelphia.
We’re going to finish up our last question, Ted. This is my favorite question and I think a lot of our reader’s favorite question too. It’s centered on you personally. You’ve been this for several years helping a lot of people and you’ve helped a lot of families. How do you stay centered in your values and then stay encouraged to reach new goals?
The values is interesting because I look back and didn’t realize the values were being instilled upon me when I was an infant, but apparently what mom and dad did a good job with that. I joke about the fact that I’m from Philly, I’m not supposed to have a moral compass, but I found a moral compass and it was probably already there. Maybe the Midwestern values and a lot of the folks that I’ve witnessed here have helped change my dynamic. I had a lot more personality years ago, when I came to St. Louis. I beat my horn once when I first came to St. Louis, and people looked at me like I was crazy. Go to a Cardinals game and people would sit on their hands and it was quiet, someone would spill a beer and one of the ushers would come and clean it up. That was unheard of to me.
I left my wallet someplace and went into a store and somebody said, “Don’t worry about it. Pay me when you come back.” That’s neat. St. Louis is a very cool community. A lot of transplants are here. Midwestern values. Very good quality of life and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that. St. Louis has rubbed off on me and what my folks have done in regard to raising me has certainly helped with those values. No question about it. It does bother me though because you surround yourself with good people, hopefully, but then you see other folks that may not share those same values. Sometimes you just kind of shake your head. I think Mark Twain said, “The more I get to know people, the more I love dogs,” which I thought was awesome. It’s a phenomenal statement. I guess the older I get, the crustier I get and the more skeptical I’ve become in regard to humanity as a whole, but you try to surround yourself with good people and it helps you sleep well at night and that’s what I’m trying to obtain.
Put yourself in the environment with folks that are sharing your values and doing the right thing. Ted, I appreciate you sharing your story. I appreciate what you’re doing to help seniors. I want to encourage you to keep fighting the good fight and with people that are challenged with these big things. With transitioning from homes in senior care and estate plans and all of those things. Keep fighting the good fight. Thank you so much. You can find Ted at SeniorLearningInstitute.com and TrustInTed.com. He is a real estate agent in Missouri. He is, to me, the most specialized senior agent I’ve ever talked to. If you need help or anyone else transitioning, especially anywhere in Missouri, please reach out to Ted. He has a heart for serving and he can help you out. Ted, any last words for our readers?
I appreciate the time, Brett, first of all. There are folks that do what I do throughout the country. Look for designations called a certified senior housing professional. There are only 113 of us that are doing that. There are also senior’s real estate specialists. There are very few folks that have certified senior advisor designations that do what I do. I would encourage you to reach out to me. Go to the SeniorLearningInstitute.com website or go to Trust in Ted or Ted@TrustInTed.com and send me an email or give me a call. I’ll be happy to provide you whatever resources you need, whether it be a care manager or a real estate agent or anybody else that I can help you with. Let me know, I can connect you with attorneys as well. Utilize me as a resource. It would be my pleasure to do so.
Thank you, Ted. Be sure to take advantage of that, TrustInTed.com and SeniorLearningInstitute.com. With that I thank you, Ted, for being on the show. I also want to thank our readers for reading another episode of the show. Where we believe having a plan such as an estate plan, such as a tax deferral plan, in place, ready to go is the best way for you to create and preserve more wealth. Don’t get stuck in probate. Don’t get stuck in families fighting. Get the plan in place. Get with it with a good estate planning attorney and have that all ready to go. We look forward to seeing you and hearing from you on the next show. Thanks so much.

Challenges During Senior Transition: Get yourself affiliated with a great financial advisor team.
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That wraps up another episode of Capital Gains Tax Solutions show. I love his heart for serving seniors, serving folks who are in a transition period, who need help, an advocate, someone who’s going to look out for them when they sell their highly appreciate at home. Who’s going to transition to senior care, going to negotiate, help them get an estate plan going, all of those things are so vital. What a place for him to be able to serve. I also like the fact that he talks about how having an estate plan in place reduces friction for the family, which helps to leave a better legacy for the adult who’s passing away or transitioning. Getting that estate plan and then over communicating it as much as you can is important.
As always, we want to encourage pre-planning for capital gains tax, estate tax, for estate planning. Whatever it is pre plan, take action now with the inspiration you received from Ted, and some of the some of the key points there for your estate plan. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Share this with somebody who maybe their parents are going through some transitions, or they themselves are older and elderly and going through some transitions. This would be inspirational and would be very informative for them. Share this with someone who this might help. Looking forward to having you read the next episode. Thanks so much.
Important Links:
- Ted Gottlieb
- Senior Learning Institute
- SeniorLearningInstitute.com
- TrustInTed.com
- Downsizing Guide
- Ted@TrustInTed.com
About Ted Gottlieb
Ted Gottlieb is a Broker-Salesperson with 12 years+ of Real Estate experience. Ted’s works with buyers, sellers, investors, and developers. Ted has numerous REALTOR® and National Association of Home Builder (NAHB) designations. They include: Accredited Buyers Representative (ABR®); Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES®); Certified Seniors Housing Professional (CSHP®); Master In Residential Marketing (MIRM); Certified Sales Professional (CSP); Certified Marketing Professional. Let Ted help you buy, sell, or build your property in St. Louis County or St. Louis City.When you choose Ted, you’ve made a friend and real estate agent for life. You notice the difference right away. We’ll take the high road together, have fun, and accomplish your dreams.