Senior Housing Investing: Why Institutional Capital Is Moving Into Senior Living Assets

Jerry Vinci (00:00)
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing I can say about, so senior living would be the act of like actually living in the community, whereas senior housing would be more focused on the real estate side of it. The biggest thing I can say where people get it wrong again, is that senior housing is an, it’s an operating business inside of a real estate wrapper, but you’re not just buying the building with tenants, you’re buying a building, you’re

plus a service operation, plus a clinical operation, plus a sales operation. So you’ve got to manage multiple pieces, multiple moving parts, and depending on the level of care that you offer, it’s gonna get far more

Quentin (02:10)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host Q Edmonds today. I am excited about my guests. I’m excited about today’s subject matter. And we’re going to talk about some senior living. We’re going to talk about senior housing. But this gentleman, listen, the way he talks about it, it’s like an art form. Like, really, like he, I love the way he talks about it. I think we’re going to learn a lot today.

And I think we know, but I think he’s going to show us that we really don’t know what we think we know. So I love the way his approach to it. I love the different services that has come out of just his innovation and his thinking. And so I’m really excited, really excited for us to learn from Mr. Jerry Vinci. Mr. Jerry, how are you doing today,

Jerry Vinci (02:55)
Hey Q doing well. Thanks for having me

Quentin (02:58)
Nah man, thank you for being here, sir. And listen, I’m the type man. I like to dive right in, right? And so I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, Jerry give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in. We love origin stories, And then tell them what part of the world you’re in or maybe what part of the world you’re going to. I’ll kind of let you decide, but people love to know.

Jerry Vinci (03:23)
Yeah.

Quentin (03:24)
geographically

where people are, especially if people is close and they can, you know, really, you know, maybe collaborate with them and work with them. And so, man, again, what’s your up to? What’s your up to? Your origin story and where you are, Mr. Jerry, sir, you have the floor,

Jerry Vinci (03:40)
Sure. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So I, currently live in Carmel, California in the process of moving to Salt Lake city, Utah in the next couple of weeks. So a little chaotic over here. ⁓ I’ve been in the marketing sales consulting space for, for nearly three decades now. And, ⁓ I got my start in senior living.

Quentin (03:41)
That’s me.

Jerry Vinci (04:04)
more so than senior housing and senior living. I’m talking about more of like the operator, the marketing side of the business. And, ⁓ I really got drawn towards that just because of my own personal family experience. had all four of my grandparents go through some type of senior care, senior housing, whether it was, for dementia and Alzheimer’s or just, you know, some assisted living, they needed some help with activities of daily living. but I got a taste and I got it.

to see all the different types of living options there were and how beneficial that can be to older adults who nowadays the loneliness epidemic is so huge that just thinking about making sure that everybody’s a part of a community and is well supported throughout their lifetime is so important. from a marketing perspective, I was tired of selling widgets and things that didn’t really matter and I…

I saw the senior living industry as a place where, you know, people came first and while we’re selling, you know, units in a building, so to speak, we’re, you know, we’re providing a, a safe, stable, secure home for someone for potentially the, the rest of their days. So there’s a lot of, a lot of power in that and meaning in that. so I, I got my start kind of on the marketing side that evolved into from marketing to

helping operators who run these communities to build what I call a revenue engine. So basically from the first touch point that a prospect has on a Google search all the way through to signing a lease, our agency has now taken ownership of that whole process. So we work with the marketing team, the sales team, the operations team to make sure that what they have in place is a system that is repeatable, sustainable, and allows them to either

Maintain or reach full occupancy and stay there so that the buildings remain as profitable as possible and and provide the best experience they can for the residents that kind of evolved into the capital-facing side of senior living where now we are helping we’re helping investment committees to assess the The asset itself the real estate asset because with with senior living it’s not like multifamily

or any other type of real estate, you know, it’s it’s a building. Yes, you’re purchasing a building, but you have an operating asset inside the building. So the and the operating asset is the thing that drives the value most of all, because unlike say a hotel, or even multifamily where you’re just collecting rent on a monthly basis or daily basis, if it’s a hotel, those things are elastic, because they’re they’re tied directly to the economy. So if

If businesses slow down, if the economy weakens, people don’t travel, hotels don’t get booked. ⁓ You know, people stop buying real estate. But when it comes to senior living, mom still fell. Dad still got dementia. It doesn’t matter what the economy is doing at any point in time. There’s still a need for it. So this is one of those industries that 86 % of institutional investors have said in 2026 that they’re going to increase their footprint in the senior housing space in this year alone. So

It’s definitely up and coming, but it also has a great deal of complexity that comes with it. And I think that’s part of the challenge.

Quentin (08:09)
Yeah. Wow, man. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jerry. Thank you for welcoming us to the journey, letting us know what you do, kind of how you got there, got into the space and where you landed now. Man, I love it. I love so much of what you said.

you started off on the marketing side, marketing sales side of things. was doing that for like three decades, right? Then you got, you you was really wanting to focus in on the senior living, the operating side of things. And that kind of came from, you know, your grandparents, all four grandparents went through some type of senior living.

You know, and you was tired of just selling widgets. You know, you wanted to more focus on people like serving people wanted to have you actually say people to come first. And that’s actually what I wrote down.

And so you want to provide them with stable living, for the people that’s later in their years. And so now this is kind of like how you got into this space and now you help people on all aspects, from the marketing sides, the sales sides, to the operation, like the whole structure of the business. And it’s kind of created kind of three products line for you, right? So is that kind of like a pretty good summarization of what you said?

Jerry Vinci (09:23)
⁓ Yeah, the only thing I would add to that was just that now we’re kind of leaning more on the capital side, the capital facing side, working direct with investors.

Quentin (09:27)
Gotcha. Yeah, Gotcha. Yeah. And I literally

have capital reason. I have it down. I didn’t say it. But yes, thank you for inviting me. So I kind of I do this kind of summary because I have a saying and I say it by every podcast that destiny has no wasted moments. Right. Right. As we go through life, we are borrowing from every part of our journey.

Jerry Vinci (09:35)
Yeah

Love that.

Quentin (09:57)
And it reinforces the people that we are today. Like it reinforces our why, like why we do what we do. It reinforces our passion. We can pull from the journey to center us. Like when things get rough, we can say, listen, you know, I know why I’m here. I know why I’m doing this. And I know, you know, things have been hard in the past, but I came through that. So I’m going be okay now. And so Mr. Jai, man, I would love to know, sir, throughout the journey, throughout the moments.

What have they taught you about yourself? Have they taught you discipline, resilience? What has the journey taught you about you, Mr. Jerry?

Jerry Vinci (10:33)
That’s a really good question.

I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned throughout this journey is that I’m motivated by, by, taking care of people. I’m a natural born caretaker, you know, like as, as a dad, you know, I do everything I can to make sure my kids are protected. And as a business owner, I’ve done everything I can to make sure my team is protected and well taken care of. now that’s, it was a natural progression for us as a team now to take up that.

that mantle with the clients that we work with. So we’ve been saying for years, probably for decades now that we see ourselves as partners and not just a vendor. I think the first, ⁓ I can’t even remember what our first tagline was like, not just partners over projects or something like that. So we’ve always had that mindset of we want to take care of people and it…

And in this new space of senior living now, it’s kind of, it’s branched from not only being partners with the communities themselves, but, who the community serves, you know, we see ourselves now directly tied to them. So there’s so much responsibility and weight that we take seriously in that. And, and we know that if we’re successful, that means the community is successful. And if the community is successful, then all these families and their loved ones who are in those communities are also, you know, they have peace of mind and they’re happy as well. there’s like,

There’s just this, you know, just chain of events that happens. That’s so positive that it just motivates you. so I’ve tried to just hold onto that feeling as much as I can. And that’s what really has motivated me to keep going and to continue to deliver products that add value. think that’s as a marketing expert, I think that’s one of the things that drives me crazy is you see so many products on the market that do nothing. They have no intrinsic value for anyone. It’s like,

This product helps you move this thing from A to B, but it doesn’t inherently change what that thing is. It’s just moving it from one piece of the room to the other. And I, and you can see that a lot in a lot of things, but no meaningful change comes from it. So you’ve just purchased something else because you thought it was cool, but it’s not really doing anything. And I didn’t, never wanted to be associated with anything like that. like, am I adding value? And I think as, as a, as a business owner too,

And I guess as a business owner who’s niched down into a specific space, I think the biggest question you always want to ask yourself is like, how do I become an indispensable asset to my clients? Right. Because I’m delivering, I’ve decided to focus on one specific core unit, core group of people, because I know that these are the people I’m best suited to help. So, you know, what can I do to ensure that they’re going to continue coming back to me because I’m actually doing something that they need. And that’s actually.

producing positive results. So that’s been a motivating factor for me.

Quentin (13:59)
I love it. mean, thank you for just laying out just different kind of motivating factors for you. know, it’s a proverb I quote quite often here. And it says, when you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. And so like, love hearing, yeah, you know, it’s an industry that we know is going to continue to keep going, right? We got that. But just also your mindset is really making a difference.

having something that’s gonna stick. My dad is a pastor. I don’t know why always say was. I gotta watch my vernacular, because my dad’s still alive, still kicking, and he’s still doing what he do. So don’t know why I say was, but I don’t know why I do that. But he’s pastored for 41 years. And so me working alongside him at times, his demographic, he had a lot of elderly people that came to his church.

So that, of course, led to us going to where they live, you know, really helping in them, encouraging them. And I love how you said the ripple effect that what it has on a family, what it has on the community, when they know they’re in a safe space, when they know that somebody, they’re in a place where somebody cares. And so just when you sit, when you talk about that aspect of it, that really comes shining through because that strengthens so many core, that strengthens generations, really.

And it goes from the people who are obviously in your facilities to their family, to their grandkids, to their great-grandkids. so I appreciate you answering that question with so much reflection, man. I really, really do. Jar, let me ask you business-wise, I know you’re about to be on the move. So let me ask you, what’s next for you, man? What’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve at Scale Next?

Jerry Vinci (16:28)
I think focusing on the capital-facing side of senior housing for us the product we launched The name of it is called Norton. It’s N. D. And I always spell it because everybody knows like Norton antivirus and they think that’s what I’m saying, but Norton so It is essentially a diagonal a set of dyes diagnostic tools that helps investors Whatever phase they’re in in in that process of acquiring an asset or assessing

Quentin (16:40)
Yeah, yeah, Right, right.

Jerry Vinci (16:55)
whether the asset’s performing or maybe they want to exit and get out. we have, we have tools that can do that. So we’re in the process of, of launching that nationwide right now. and the few, investors and partners that we’ve spoken to about it and show them what we can do have been so excited because there’s this, there’s this due diligence gap. And, I know it exists in other markets too. It’s not just senior housing, but it’s senior housing. As I mentioned in my intro, there’s,

there’s quite a big gap between what the real estate asset is worth and what the operator inside the asset is actually producing. so most due diligence frameworks, whether it’s financial or legal, they don’t necessarily look at that. They can’t answer the questions of like how that asset’s actually performing in the market. How’s it, you know, what is its digital footprint? Is it showing up in search? How’s their online reputation? You know, what’s the sentiment around them, you know,

Do people in the community support it? Are they against it? Do they like the staff? Do they not like the staff? Those are things that, you know, that all are intrinsically important to the deal. And when you buy a senior living community, I mean, you, have to think like, what’s going to happen when those keys change hands? Is occupancy going to stay where it’s at? What’s coming with that asset? Is it coming with the website and all the reviews and all these other tools and tech stacks, or does all that go away?

And now you have to start from scratch. potentially you started here at 90 % and now you’re down at 70 % within the first six months, which is a reality that can happen if you’re not tracking these things. so having, having a way to do that, to help investors, especially newer, newer investors who may not understand how this asset class operates. think it’s, it’s really, again, rewarding to be in a space to empower other people, to make better informed decisions that are going to benefit them.

as well as the entire portfolio for years to come.

Quentin (18:48)
Yeah. I want to ask two questions. I wasn’t going to go ahead, but my mind started twirling as you was talking. I’ll ask two questions. Are there common misconceptions when it comes to senior living? Because you broke it up in senior living, senior housing. Like I heard you kind of explain it two ways. So are there common misconceptions? And is there a word that you can give to people that’s already in this space? Like that maybe think they got things figured out, that maybe you can give them a little tool to say, hey,

This is how you can improve on what you already don’t.

Jerry Vinci (19:20)
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing I can say about, so senior living would be the act of like actually living in the community, whereas senior housing would be more focused on the real estate side of it. The biggest thing I can say where people get it wrong again, is that senior housing is an, it’s an operating business inside of a real estate wrapper, but you’re not just buying the building with tenants, you’re buying a building, you’re

plus a service operation, plus a clinical operation, plus a sales operation. So you’ve got to manage multiple pieces, multiple moving parts, and depending on the level of care that you offer, it’s gonna get far more complex.

you’ve got essentially four different asset classes, typically like independent living, which is like, know, mom or dad wants to downsize and simplify their life, so they’re gonna move into this place with peers. All their meals are included, activities included, it’s a great time.

Then you get assisted living, which is essentially the same, which is a little bit more help and it’s, it’s a little more costly. Then you get into like the memory care space and then, and then the skilled nursing space. So each tier comes at a different price point and a different level of care. And obviously that, that creates more complexity in terms of owning that asset. But the thing that you’ll see now, like with a lot of real estate multifamily, you see like a lot of like triple net leases, for example, that are, that are common.

Within the senior living space, they’re, they’re not doing triple net leases anymore. They’re doing shop agreements. So essentially shop is just senior housing, operating, partnerships where, where the operator and, and the investment committee or the re or whoever is, whoever owns that property, they’re sharing the profits that are coming from the operators performance. The NOI is coming from that operator. It’s not just, they’re not just collecting rent checks anymore. So.

If occupancy goes up 10 % and there’s another, you know, 600,000 in NLI that those, you know, that investment committee is going to see a portion of that rather than it just, you know, staying in the building itself. So there’s a lot more inherently tied to performance of the asset now than there was in the past.

Quentin (21:28)
Man, I love it. Another off the wall question that I to ask. Have you seen the movie, I Care A Lot? Have you seen that movie?

Jerry Vinci (21:35)
is that yeah, what’s her what’s her name? She’s. It’s kind of scary. Yeah.

Quentin (21:37)
Yeah, I can’t remember her name, but the guy from Game of Thrones, yeah, that movie. I don’t know

if that movie would piss you off or you would laugh at her, I’m not sure. But yeah, it was a good movie though, yeah.

Jerry Vinci (21:50)
Well, I

wouldn’t be surprised how common that is for someone to take over his power of returning and all of a sudden just like, okay, your house was yours, now it’s mine, sorry. That’s scary, but I bet you that happens more than you think. Yeah.

Quentin (22:01)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s

why, I’m just, I just love your mindset. Just, you know, just why you want to help people, serving people, making it, you know, really a place where people, people come first. So I appreciate you about that. Speaking of people, I want to ask you this last question before we get out of here. What’s your perspective when it comes to the word relationship? When you hear the word relationship, comes to mind for you, Mr. Jerry?

Jerry Vinci (22:27)
well, I think there’s two things that would come to mind when I hear that. I would need to get clarification on it. First would be, it a relationship or is it a partnership? know, partnership is a shared outcome. Relationship is, is, you know, we’re either doing business together or we’re leaning on each other on S on some level, but with no expectation that there’s going to be, you know, an equal exchange or some type of a positive outcome out of it. So.

I tend to tend to look at those a little differently. That makes sense. Yeah.

Quentin (22:58)
Yeah, no, definitely makes

sense. One of the words I like to use is set a relationship. And I thought of it out there just to kind of get the ball rolling with the conversation around like people. But I like to use community as well. I love to use the community because community, I always say, is common unity. It’s people that’s common unity, doing different things. Because like uniformity is everybody doing the same thing.

Jerry Vinci (23:18)
Love that.

Quentin (23:25)
Community is people doing different things, but with the common goal. And so everybody stays in their lane. You know, have people that’s living, have people that’s in the operation, ⁓ the marketing and all this stuff. But everybody, when you build a healthy community, everybody thrives because people are doing different things. Some people, you’re paying and some people are accepting the payment. That’s still community. Transactions happen in community, but it’s with the common goal of everybody winning. And so I love how you synthesize partnerships.

between just like transactional, just, yeah, you know, I’m getting to know you, but you know, it’s not really, we don’t know where this is going. so, no, I love hearing people’s perspective on that. So thank you for yours, man.

Jerry Vinci (24:06)
Yeah. And just to add to your word community too, I think that’s great. think any business that niches down, that is the mindset that they have to have amongst their team because everyone is working towards a cause. If you’re a niche down, you have got to love what you do and you’ve got to love who you do it for. And everyone on the team has to otherwise like, why are they even there? You know, that just, creates so much friction.

Quentin (24:28)
So yeah, that’s a mic drop, Absolutely, man. I agree, Sir, man, I thank you so much for being here. I knew this was going to be a very fruitful conversation. you did not, what’s the word they say, you did not disappoint. listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, sir, how can they get in contact with you,

Jerry Vinci (24:30)
Hahaha!

Yeah, I’d love to get in contact with anyone who wants to talk more about the capital side of senior housing. feel free to, they can reach me at my email address. It’s [email protected] J E R R Y. And then Nordon is N O R D O N or they can go to the website nordonadvisory.com.

Anybody who is, is interested in learning more about the, the operating side of senior living. have the number one senior living marketing and sales podcast right now on Apple and Spotify. It’s called from leads to leases. And, I can send you the link for that, for the show notes.

Quentin (25:28)
Man, let me say three things to you sincerely. I love saying these things, man, sincerely, because I believe in what I’m about to say. So thank you for your time. Yeah, I know how the podcast works, but I could not have done this episode without you. I could not have. And I value your time. And so I appreciate you being here, giving of your time. I appreciate that. Secondly, thank you for your story, your subject matter, your expertise, and the way you talked about it.

I really believe that our story is our narrative, but we’re passionate about it plants seeds in people. Like it’s literally planting seeds and we don’t know when that seed is going to take root. We don’t know when it’s going to grow. We can’t give it a timeframe. We don’t know. But the fact is that the seed is still there and it can literally course correct somebody’s life. know, I’m podcasts have saved my life. I think about the art, the podcast that I’ve listened to that has literally changed my trajectory. So.

Thank you, man. Thank you for coming planting seeds, man. I really, really appreciate it. And lastly, man, thank you for your mindset, sir. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. Like our mindset is reinforced over time and we pay for it in our experience. Sometimes we pay for it in money. We pay for it in losses. We pay for it in gains. And so thank you for your mindset, man, and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on,

Jerry Vinci (26:51)
Yeah, no, thank you, Quen Thank you.

Quentin (26:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So listen, y’all heard Mr. Jerry, like he said, it’s information in his show notes. Please get in contact with him, connect with him, get the pod, mean, you know, visit the pod. But definitely, man, definitely, y’all, man and lady and man, man and lady, woman. Please make sure you subscribe here, because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Jerry. So sir, thank you again. And everyone else, have a fantastic day.