What to Do With All of Your Loved One's Stuff, with Marty Stevens-Heebner

0:02 As a probate real estate broker, we spend a lot of time preparing on focusing on working on the legal aspects, paperwork, forms, letters of authority, wills, trusts, documents. But, you know, there's two things while it may or may not be the most expensive or valuable part of the estate, the stuff ends up, in my mind, having a disproportionate weight on things. One reason is we'll talk about how much there is and second is often it's the beginning of the process. And if you get off to a bad start on relationships dividing up mom or dad's stuff, the whole thing can fall apart from there. If you manage the process professionally, you're off to a good start. You have some good wins and you move keep moving. Somebody who's in this space deeply, both feet all the way in. She's actually an industry leader on the space. Marty Stevens-Heebner has been on before. She's the founder and CEO of Clear Home Solutions. Marty, thanks for coming back.

0:55 Oh, it's my pleasure. Anytime, Bill. It's always great to talk with you. The stuff. Now, it you know, again, for me as a real estate agent, it's just the stuff, yet I know if it's not handled right, we're not selling the house.

1:08 Well, if it's not handled, period. I mean, how many times do you start talking to a client and they'll get around to it, they'll get around to it, and it's years later. Yes.

1:17 And they're miserable because that's literally what weighs on them. There's the psychological There's a physical weight of stuff. The tangible property, legally, that's what it's called. But, there's also the psychological weight that is often even heavier than the physical stuff itself. And I've been thinking about this a lot. And really when it comes to someone's estate, whether they've passed or they're still alive, when it comes to their estate, there are four pillars. It's really usually only the three pillars that get discussed. The legal part, what belongs to whom, the financial part, who's got the money, and then the real estate part of the estate, which you are such an expert in.

1:57 My favorite part, by the way. Pardon me? My favorite part, by the way. Okay. And then there's the there is a fourth pillar of the estate, and that's the tangible property part of the estate. And I call it the personal property barrier. It keeps people from moving forward with a move, with selling a home, with settling an estate. And it gets put off and put off and put off. And actually there's a very logical reason. Within your home, when you're dealing with your stuff, there are literally thousands of individual decisions you have to make. Cuz just think of the number of items in your home, just in one room, and then multiply it. And you have to make a decision.

2:36 I totally have denial. I try not to think about how much stuff we have in my house. I'm so sorry. I get why it's a problem. I haven't passed yet, and it's a problem. I got too much stuff.

2:45 You know, it and it's you know, so for someone like you, well, some tips real quick, just do it a little bit at a time, for a half an hour each Saturday or Sunday, half an hour on a weekend. Or pick a drawer each weekend to do it. Just slowly but surely keep doing it, and you'll get it done. Cuz you're not looking to move or anything else right now. Plus you're in great shape, so take advantage. Just my advice.

3:09 Yeah, no, I you did this before, and I do, and I every Sunday I try to take one spot, a walk-in closet, I have a chest of drawers, I with the play the grandkids play, my office, a closet in the office. The problem is I keep getting one fixed, and I got more stuff in the other places. But at least we make great progress over time. One bite at a time. I think that's the great advice, and I try to use that. It's on my calendar, every Sunday I have 1 hour, and I really spend about half hour, 1 hour maximum, and just clean what I can, and what I throw out what can get thrown out, donate what can be donated, and make some progress on a weekly basis. That's my plan.

3:44 That's great. And you know, you always feel good afterwards, you accomplish something. Yes. Yes. And I always say, if you're going through paperwork, just bring a box over to the couch, turn on a movie you feel like watching, and just go through it while you're sitting there.

3:56 I say just get rid of all of it. You don't need the paperwork. If it's not online at this stage, if it's not online, I'm already screwed, so forget it. I'm done. I Yeah. Yeah.

4:05 Smart. Smart. But there is But like I say, you know, and even when you're dealing it a bit by bit, it's just like, okay, I have to remember to do this bit every single weekend. And it's you have to make decisions. And they're not always easy ones, especially when you're settling an estate, too. I mean, it Yes, people fight over the house. They fight over the money and everything like that. But what they will really be ready to kill for is that side table that's 50 years old. It's scuffed up and everything, but you know what? That was the family side table, and Grandpa loved it, so I want No, I want it. No. Or gram you know, grandma's torn-up, scribbled-in cookbook. It's those things cuz there's so much emotion around them, and irrational emotion, sure, but that's It's kind of like the grief gets funneled in these weird ways and comes out in these strange ways. And it holds things up so much, and that's why people in my profession really are so vital and instrumental. Because, for example, you know, it's being with that widow whose husband died recently. And the thing is, when somebody dies who you care about so much, you're mired suddenly in this horrible grief and these stabbing pains, and you are handed a to-do list that is hundreds of to-dos long, and also there's all the expenses of the funeral and everything else going on.

5:29 And all the while, really, you're just feeling all this pain. And so that's our specialty, you know, our tagline, where compassion meets know-how. It's knowing how both having the ability to be with that widow with her grief, and be with her, know how to calm her It calm her as much as possible, listen to her, and at the same time keep her keep her moving through the process. We're not therapists, but there's kind of a lot of therapy involved. And then there's just the logistics that of it. Once we've sorted things, then what goes to your donation? Not only what It's frankly not one organization will pick up everything. So, who else do we have? What can we sell? Who can sell it? Where can they get the most money for it? What needs to be moved? The logistics. If it's local, we'll set everything up, get the all the utilities so she or the kids or whatever don't have to deal with all that. So, it's having that blend of psychological understanding and the ability to move people forward despite all this pain. And at the same time really know how to get things done, have the logistics, the resource lists, knowing what to do, and being very organized, and working as a team. So, it's very important.

6:38 So, as a husband, I must say I'm offended that your avatar is the widow. What does that do for me? Sec- second of all, more important with a widow. We're all more important.

6:47 Second of all, I would say, you know, that is the common avatar, I think most more common what for whatever reasons logistically or scientifically. But the other dynamic is most commonly of that generation or old enough to be widowed that they didn't really make all the business decisions. They weren't used to making decis- You know, when you're in a business, I'm sure like me, I'm making decisions all day long. Do we go with this? Do we do that? Do we do this email? Do we not do this post? Do we have But, you know, my wife, who runs the household, isn't quite the same pace of decision. That's not true for everybody, but at least in our life, it's not the same pace. Maybe if we're younger and had eight kids, but it's just the two of us. There's not that much going on around here. And so, I think that the oftentimes the trailing spouse has never had to make that many decisions in years. It's a muscle that they just haven't exercised that they really need some like a trainer or some a coach to help them through that exercise.

7:42 Well, they have she hasn't made your kind of decisions. Chances are you haven't made her kind of decisions. Just saying. So she's been making decisions, but they're different kinds of decisions. And they may there may be different factors that she has to take into account. But that's the thing because there has been this division of labor. It's going to be different from your for younger generations. And for you know, like I'm going to be 65 this December. But for women like me or we all worked. We've all worked at one point or another. So we're used to looking at financial statements and things. And actually my mom was in charge of the household finances. So she knew she had to teach my dad who by the way ran his own company very successfully.

8:27 But that was rare with their generation. Right. And so it's just it's honestly it's the grief. It's just all-encompassing and understanding that they need to move forward, but it's so it's so hard to do. And just and all the decisions one right after another. It's so challenging. And then again knowing which resources to use. Yeah.

8:52 And it's also not having had that mode of operation. Meaning like in my business I have a certain rhythm to it, right? I work Monday through Friday. I cut out at noon Friday. I basically take a break at noon every day to exercise or get something to eat. You have a certain rhythm in how I do things. And I'm used to that rhythm. And when I get out of that rhythm, I find myself a little discombobulated, a little inefficient. And so for a surviving spouse, seeing them for hours seemingly and you don't really need to do it all at once, right? But you might think, well, I have to get all this done and we can't get the house on the market till I get through all these items or make pictures of all these items or make a list. You know, it can be overwhelming if you don't have some systems, procedures, processes, and maybe an expert to hold your hand and walk you through that. So, talk a little bit about Okay, so if somebody passed, their surviving spouse, they're probably well-to-do, nice home, all kinds of the normal stuff that would be in a two or three million-dollar West LA house, what are some of the procedures, processes, and systems you have to help somebody get through that process?

9:55 Well, first it's just listening. That's the number one thing you have to be able to know how to do is listen and be empathetic. That's the hard skill. All the other stuff you can learn. But just really knowing how to understand where someone else is coming from and knowing how to kind of work with that and understand it, that's key. But in terms of just the process itself, so if someone passes, obviously there's the funeral. And ideally, like I if I'm going to talk about the process that a person who didn't who didn't need to work with us, chose not to work with us, would do. So, you've got your kids, you probably have some like you have your in-laws, the brother and sisters in law. You want to find out what they want first. Now, they're going through their own grief. So, that and they probably don't all live in town and things like that. I mean, if you can, it's handy to do an inventory, a home inventory. It can even just be photos online, so people can see what's there and what they might like. Or what you don't have to show them everything, but cuz there are obviously things as the spouse you would want to keep yourself.

11:01 But it's figuring out what people want to keep. So, it's other people, it's also you. And so, it's going through bit by bit, every part of the house. It's also determining are you going to stay there or are you going to move? Obviously, if you've lived there a long time with that beloved spouse, my dad used to say, "No one knows what it's like to lose a beloved spouse unless they've gone through it." Cuz my dad was a younger widower. He was He was actually 65 when my mom died. But it's I lost my track. Sorry, I thought about my dad and that whole emotional experience and I might bring one boop. But it's figuring out whether you're going to stay there cuz again oh, because the house can haunt you as you and I both know and probably some of your listeners know, but the house can haunt you. So, it's determining are you going to stay or go? If you're staying even so, you want to go through and kind of make sure of the things you want to keep and other things that you probably want to let go of cuz they might get to you too much. But if you're moving especially, you may want to downsize. This is a good time to do it especially cuz that house can be too much to take care of. It's just too much.

12:11 Right. Give yourself a lighter load. So, it's going through everything bit by bit. Like I said, you know, an hour here, you know, an hour there or you know, hire professional. We're very good at these and we you know, work in like a 4-hour session because believe me, after all the decisions you have to make in 4 hours, you're going to be exhausted.

12:28 I would think. I want to 4 hours straight. That's a that's a tough job I think to for many people. One is especially when you're making really emotional decisions and everything reminds you of the person who's no longer there. It just reverberates through you. Well, just still things you want to think about is like what do we want to sell? And is it something that needs to go to auction? Do we want to Do I want to have an estate sale? Do I want you know, do I want to do an online estate sale? This is something that my Clear Home Solutions that we do. We partner with a really good company called MaxSold for online auctions. You can also do that yourself if you choose to. So, what's worth selling? What's worth What do you want to keep? What needs to be let go of? Again, keep other people making decisions about what they want. One of the fun things you can do actually with things that you're not selling, that you're not keeping, is have a giveaway party. Now, especially after someone's passed away, it can be a little tough and emotional, but it can also be really beautiful. I think of it as a celebration of that person. And just you know, put stickers or something on the items you want people to have take away if they want to. And have a lovely gathering. And this way people will thank you for it. You'll share some memories and it'll be really beautiful and they'll have a piece of your beloved person who's passed away.

13:52 And then it's things like hiring the movers, dealing with the utilities changes and things like that. And obviously hire hiring a really great Realtor®. So you hire Bill.

14:02 That's what you do. And of course, you know, I'm saying this, you know, there's all there's the legal aspects. So somebody's passed, you got to see what's going on with the will. And please have a will and an estate plan. Don't make it go to probate because you'll be waiting for such a long time. And you'll pay you'll pay tens of thousands of dollars. And you know, you and I have seen that bill and it's so hard to see.

14:24 Let me just clarify for the record that a will goes to probate. So it won't get you out of probate. Oh, thank you. Yes, right.

14:32 A will is something that's admitted in probate and will guide the court on how to distribute things, but you're going to go through the whole probate process. It doesn't speed things up at all. An estate plan, if it's in a trust, that can bypass probate for many things or everything depending on what's left. And again, it gets down to the personal property. How much is it really worth? You know, you can have things that are you don't think are worth a lot. You know, you buy a bunch of Pokémon cards 20 years ago and you put them in a box and then all of a sudden you find out, "Whoa, you have a this or that. That's worth half a million dollars." That gets distributed through probate. You can't just You can have the house and everything all the all the financial assets all covered. I mean, the jewelry and everything could be in the trust already. But the Pokémon cards are probably not or could be in a pour-over will. That's a whole legal thing to talk about, but my point is definitely when you estate plan. Talk to an attorney, get the right advice for your situation.

15:24 Yes. This is why yeah, I am not an attorney, obviously. You and I. But yeah, but whatever you can put through the trust, it really helps a lot.

15:32 Yeah. But you know, the okay, but talking about cards and things like that, people will have these huge baseball card collections that have been sitting in the basement. It's like, oh, these are so valuable. Well, no, because you've had a rats nibbling at them and you know, there was water damage and all of this sort of thing. So

15:49 Wrapped properly, they weren't kept properly, they were kept in the sun in a box, in the heat. They're coming off a little bit. That Mickey Mantle card is not perfect at the one that sold for millions of dollars. It's imperfect and yeah, and that's heartbreaking to tell people that.

16:04 Well, it's always about managing expectations cuz we have to explain to people is this isn't worth what you paid for it 20, 10 years ago, whatever. What it's worth right now is what someone is willing to pay for it right now.

16:17 Right. So and things go in and out of fashion and so it just kind of depends. One of the biggest disappointment areas that I deal with customers is the piano. They The piano can be beautiful. You know, there's some beautiful black lacquered, nice, beautiful ivory keys, great condition. It can be in beautiful condition. But in my experience, if I can get somebody to take the piano at no cost, I save my client money.

16:44 That's what You know, I've been doing this over 13 years. Yeah. And even in the beginning all those years ago, it was hard to get forget selling, give away a piano. I mean, we could we could call local schools and places of worship and other places who would you know, who would come get it. But now all those places either have more pianos than they need or you know, they're just using keyboards and things like you know, like simple keyboards and things like that. And so it's really hard to give them away and selling them, I mean, it has to be a great Steinway or they're I'm blanking, there're are a couple of other brands that can sell. Not for men. But the whole idea is to just not have to pay to have them hauled away cuz that's a chunk.

17:29 That's a chunk cuz it's a big heavy thing. And also, when they hold away not, you know, my experience with this is typically you're lucky to get rid of it. The seller will hold out and get 500 bucks. But the problem is the person buying it is going to move it themselves. And so they're carrying the thing down your stairs and it's so heavy, I've had several cases where they chip stairs, you know, the bricks, whatever. Not horribly, but enough to make you go, "Wow, that wasn't worth the 500 bucks." I mean, now you have the interest of your house with these chipped bricks and whatever wood scraped away. It's hard. Those pianos, that's the one thing I would in the in the of the personal property like never worth as much as you have it. Maybe again, a collector Steinway. I've never had one of those in my estates experience, but

18:14 A couple. Yeah, but that's a rare bird. It is. It really is. And they have to be in great shape. Yeah. That'd be like ready to use at a concert hall or something. Otherwise cuz nobody else really has pianos anymore. Like they don't have them in their formal living rooms anymore and like I say, schools don't get them. They have other instruments or smaller and easier to take away. [unclear] in our house or another relative's home. And we'd have 10, 20, 50 people, 100 people. My parents would hold parties at our house. We'd have, you know, a house full of party of my client My father was attorney for his clients. Nowadays, it's not like that. So, these things that were very valuable and your parents loved and they played their record player. It was beautiful, this big record player thing. And you have all the old records. That's great, but those old records, unless they're certain types, they're just not worth what you might think they are, no matter how good they are The artist is.

19:42 And same thing with the, you know, the stereo. Yes. Yeah. I mean worth It's not worth anything.

19:50 Fine memories, but who's going to carry that out of the house? How you going to How you going to get out of the house? What are you going to do with it? That's the whole thing. You have to hire people and hire trucks and things like that. And that's why furniture at estate sales and also donation organizations, you know, it's really hard to sell. Because there you have to have that investment in people and also the vehicle that can carry it.

20:12 Right. Yeah, it's a it's a whole other thing. Now, do you get involved with cars? And sometimes with cars we have lost keys, lost registration. Talk to me about the car. I don't know what this is. Does it Does it Is it start? I don't know. What's the solution that you find? Might be a nice car. Could be like an older Mercedes or something, but nobody knows where the keys are and the registration cuz in probate you have to stand in to do the registration. But nobody necessarily knows where it's at or where the or where the where the pink slip is. So, that's rental's challenging. What are your experiences with that?

20:43 Yeah, we've gone We've run the gamut. Yeah, it comes down to research. And contacting the right car resellers, we'll say. Helping people track down the pink slips. Going to the D- you know, dealing with the DMV. You mentioned the car keys. I swear, you know, if we're dealing with a big house or whatever or a hoarding situation, which we do. At the end, there will be a plastic ziplock bag full of keys.

21:13 We don't necessarily know what they go If we knew where they went to, they'd be labeled and like attached somehow to that whatever it was. But okay, old car keys, okay. Well, the car There's no car or there's a car, but these This is for an old Toyota, not the Chevrolet or whatever that's in the garage. Storage unit keys, okay. Where's the storage unit?

21:40 And you look for the contract, it's not So, storage wars for the TV series, we always like I love that show.

21:49 It's just wild. I remember one guy we were working with, and he was a very organized hoarder hoarding personal hoards, we like to say personal hoards. And

21:58 One time we had to go to him and say, cuz I think we found the contract and the keys. And we went up to him and said, "Do you have a storage unit?" And the look on his It's like, "Yeah." Like he was like busted. Like I got caught. Yeah. Cuz he liked his stuff. It was just kind of funny.

22:19 But yeah, we're always with it. You know, it was I've been doing this 13 years, that was probably at least 9 years ago. No, I don't remember. I'm sorry. So,

22:27 That sounds like an episode that you would want to watch. Like If somebody's If you If you had that as a as a tee up on the Oh, right. We found the storage box keys. -oh. Tune in and see what it was.

22:40 Yeah, it's yeah. Interesting what people keep, that's for sure. But you know, they kept it for a reason, and it's Sometimes helping people through that is knowing when to ask them to tell the story and find these different ways, you know, whether it's asking them to tell the story, or okay, you've got 10 red sweaters. Can we cut it back down to three? These two have holes in them. Okay, these three don't fit anymore. You know, would somebody else like these? Just all the different tools in our tool kit to, you know, help them let go of things and again, move forward that way. Because if you don't do that, people don't move forward or they move forward in a miserable way. But it delays everything. It just delays everything and can make families miserable and put off settling estates or just or moving to assisted living or moving to be closer to family. It's that tangible property. Legally, that's what it's called. It's important and there are experts who can really get that done in a very, like I said, compassionate, respectful way and a very efficient way.

23:52 Yeah. Yeah, cars are fun one. I know as a real estate agent, I called in the end because I'll see in the beginning what we have. These two cars in the front or these two cars in the back. What's our plan with them? Oh, we're going to sell them. You know, and then we get into escrow. Okay, we have a date now. When are they going to be gone by? Oh, we're going to get to it. And then 3 days before our close of escrow, we're scheduling the walk-through. What are we going to do? And, you know, there are people I found vendors who will just take them. Like, no pink slip, no registration, no keys, no problem. They'll take it and they're not stealing it. They're that's their business. I don't want to know about it. But, you know, I really don't. But, well, the estate doesn't want the property under they have the right to get it removed. And I guess they store it for 3 days and if it's your car, you make a complaint. If you don't, you don't get the car and tough luck.

24:37 Yeah. But they get money for that. That's tough. I've had, you know, attorneys or fiduciary say, "Well, can you get 2 or 3 thousand dollars for the car?" Well, that sounds like a business to me. I'm not really I'm a real estate agent. Let me show you my business card. It doesn't say car salesman, but

24:50 Well, and it's having resources for people who do know how to do that. Yeah. You know, and there are people who are car resellers or you know, we've even done it with I think we've done a couple of online auctions that included a car. So, it's just finding the different resources who do that. And if we don't have a resource for it, we'll research and find one we and research them to make sure we can trust them. And we're, you know, so we're always finding new resources. That's part of the job.

25:16 Another area I get involved with is guns because often times the gun person the husband was the gun guy and the wife scared and doesn't want to touch them, doesn't know what to do with them. Or the and the children doesn't want to get involved with that. The fiduciaries may or may not want to. Now, I'll run over and play with the guns in a safe, responsible manner. But the thing again from expectations is it unless they're really fine or collectible style guns, they're not really worth enough to go through the process of the paperwork of transferring ownership here in California, right? You have a guy that might be worth, you know, retail, you go to the store and they might charge you 500 bucks, but you can sell to them for 100 or 150 and then the paperwork to transfer ownership costs about 100 or 150 anyhow and it's not so simple to do. Do you get involved with guns at all? Collectible guns or

26:05 We delegate those. Again, we know who to delegate to, but we don't handle firearms. There was one client years ago who had a bunch of World War II armaments. Armaments. They had like bomb shells and things like that. So, that was interesting to deal with. Yeah.

26:19 Cool. Yeah, I'm the guy I got hear that phone call and I'm always ready to volunteer to help out. Usually you just donate to the police department. You would take it there and they whatever they take it. Sometimes they give you some money, sometimes they don't, but at least it's safely disposed of, but I love to pick them up and play with them and take them to the to the LAPD if they ask me.

26:38 We did have one instance. Instance. God, I can't talk straight. One instance a couple years ago, you know, you're not exactly popular with the neighborhood when the bomb squad shows up to your house.

26:51 Exactly. We had a situation, it was a hoarding situation, and the late brother whose home it had been, was fascinating fascinated with mining, and also, and part of that is the old explosives that they had. And so, he had, locked display cases that had sticks of dynamite and boxes of blasting caps. And, so, we had to call in the bomb squad.

27:19 Sure. It turns out he done the right thing. He actually, once they got the display cases opened, he had actually emptied out the blast the blasting case boxes, the blast the blaster boxes, and also the and even the sticks of dynamite were emptied out. So, he'd done the right thing, but you don't know.

27:36 Until you open it. Until you open it. So, that was a very interesting morning. Who's going to open that? Find out. All you have to do is open it and check and see if it's empty or not. That's also my business cards as a real estate agent. They didn't say bomb squad number. I'm sorry to tell you. Yeah, I've had I've had some wild some wild stuff, too. So, that's what makes the job fun. You know, just to kind of wrap up, you know, obviously, you're an entrepreneur. I know you have a business related to this business that you're involved in with as a network to help grow the business. So, this isn't just something like a job. This is this has been a passion of yours that you've put your time in for a long period of time. And I think the challenge of our times is that most anybody can do most anything professionals can do with online services and YouTube as an education force, yet they can't just do it as well as we can cuz they haven't done it like we have for 5, 10, 20 years and built the experiences and the and the Rolodex or the network of people to solve these problems. It's hard to say that to a client to say, "Well, you know, I've been doing this for a long time, and I've learned a lot along the way, like you expect me to." You can't do Yes, could you sell your house on your own? Yes. Can you clean up the house on your own? Well, you can, you just can't do it as well as I can. How do you explain that to somebody who's considering, "Why can I do this on my own? Why do I need you?"

28:55 Well, one of the things we'll say is like, "So, how long have you been thinking about moving?" Well, 3 years. What's getting in the way? Well,

29:04 Me. Going through the house Yeah, exactly, going through the house. Cuz that's the what That's what the tangible property does. It's this big clog of thousands of decisions sitting in the pipe. And you can't get until you deal with all those thousands of decisions. You can't get through. So, they can try it. Also, I mean, we usually work our we charge by the hour. But we do have packages like 4-hour and 8-hour packages in case somebody wants to kind of dip a toe in and give it give it a try. But we'll often just say, you know, try one session and see where you get. And we can teach you some of our techniques so that you can keep trying to go on your own. And sometimes that happens. More often than not, they keep us coming back. Although, they'll try to do things in between sessions, which is great. You know, it's great. But yeah, especially God, but especially if you're dealing with real estate, hire a pro. Hire Bill.

29:57 Well, you know, when you deal with a vacant house, right? There's a couple other costs people don't consider. One cost is just the carrying cost, right? You have a house for a million dollars and if you take 3 months to think about it and you don't sell the house for a million and invest it, you know, you're losing out on, I don't know, $8,000 a month of lost income that house would otherwise produce. Not to mention you're paying for property taxes, insurance. The longer you drag out a probate, you're going to have more costs. You have to renew the bond. You might lose your Prop 19 if you're giving it to your kids. There's a There's nothing good that hap I tell people there's nothing good that happens from the day we sign the listing until the day you get your check. Everything is bad until that day. And, you know, one of my pet peeves with the Realtors®, I think to make ourselves feel important, we'll talk a lot about staging and what the customer has to do before they sell the house. And I and I don't believe the data supports it. I'm pretty sure I've done a lot of research on this that there's nothing you can do that will improve the value of the house other than make it safe and showable. And so my strategy with the customer is always get the stuff out as efficiently and quickly as you can if you want to maximize your revenue. Get as quickly and if you lose five or ten thousand dollars on the sale of stuff, but you gain eight or sixteen thousand because you sold the house already.

31:12 Yeah. What do you care at the end of the day? And like it's time to move on. And so I that's my best strategy financially. Now you again you somebody who's mourning and still in grief and they want to drag it out, but the truth even there is if they just ripped off the band-aid they can move forward with their life.

31:27 Yeah, and we can gently help them pull the band-aid off very carefully so it's as pain free as possible. Yeah. Pull the whole thing off at once. I'm

31:35 We have We haven't worked together on a on a still like that because I think we should. We'd be a good team cuz I mean to say they just rip the band-aid off. You go, "No, I'll help you. Don't worry." And they'll be relieved to hear your voice of calm and then yeah.

31:48 Well, and as you know, I mean one of the things too cuz since we're literally working in the home. And by the way, if you're ever working with somebody who does what we do, make sure to check that they have insurance. They have that their people are employees, not contractors cuz that way they're they should be covered by the company's workers' comp not you know, if they slip and fall in your home, they're not trying to sue you. And we're bonded, everybody's background checked. So you want to make sure that anybody you hire that you ask them those questions. But also it's just the family dynamics. It's when you families butt heads no matter what. So if you and your spouse or you have the adult kids who are just butting heads over things, it helps to get just a neutral third party in there who knows how to talk to them, how to listen, and help things move forward by getting like basically buffering that argument. And understand cuz honestly, that argument, it's not about the stuff. It's about the grief and maybe something that happened when they were kids or something like that. And we know how to help guide them past that. They can still argue about what happened when they were seven. But at least they're they tell what the house is and they can do that. And can I will I will like promote my book. I wrote a the book on this, how to move your parents

33:09 Oh. Wow. Wow. Wow. So, it's a list and advice and including emotional advice, how to work with your clients, you know, you family members who have dementia. And there's tons of checklists and everything. I basically took at that point 12 years of doing this and just took everything we do in the company and dumped it in a book. It's a lot of fun to write.

33:27 Okay. I don't know I don't know that I knew that you had a book before. Did I Oh, maybe we maybe I didn't have it the last time we talked. Maybe not. So, let's talk about let's talk about it. Here it is that we'll show it on Amazon. How to move your parents and still be on speaking terms. Well, what if you're not speaking That's a whole 'nother discussion. Been through this a couple times myself. My parents moved and my mother moved and my in-laws. So, I've been through this process. I know it's challenging. It take a lot of time. So, if you're interested in the book, looks to me like very reasonable and then if you hire Marty, then you want to get her to sign the book. Then you have a signed copy and that's going to be worth a lot of money to

34:04 Well, you know, as soon as I published this book, I realized, "Oh crap, I have Pardon me. I have to write the companion book, which is something like how to move in later life and keep your kids out of it." Something like that for the parents and their point of view.

34:18 Wow. Okay. So, for anybody who's interested, I'm going to put the I'm going to put the link up there real quick. It's the Amazon link. You can get that page. And if you miss that, call me, text me, email me. I'll get you the link as well if you want to buy the book. But Marty's a fantastic resource.

34:32 Thank you. And just you can look up how to move your parents and it will pop up on Amazon. It did. I did I did it and it happened it happened pretty lickety-split, I have to say. And then in general, if you're looking to move or more important, I think beforehand, planning, what am I going to do? What will it take? What's it going to cost? Where Compassion Meets Know-How is definitely where Marty sits. She's the founder and CEO Clear Home Solutions. [phone number]. One of our favorite guests on this program. Marty, thank you again for coming on. Thanks for all your kind words and insight you've given us and continued success with your business and with the book.

35:05 And Bill, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure being with you. Thank you very much. My pleasure. And this is Probate Weekly. We get together every week. Usually we have probate attorneys or litigators, but in this case, these are key vendors also help us make the system work better, help us be more valuable to our clients. Hope you found it helpful. Love to get any comments, questions. Like this, put a comment in the comment on YouTube. If I can help in any way, reach out at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks.