 Welcome to Inside Hawaii Real Estate, a show dedicated to providing up-to-date information news to Hawaii home buyers, homeowners, and investors. I'm Will Tanaka. I'm your host and today really excited to have a very special guest. Kea Lee-E-Lam is a franchise owner of Carrying Transitions. But first, a little bit about Kea Lee. He's a graduate of Kamehameha Schools. He got a scholarship from University of San Francisco to play baseball. In fact, he was drafted by the Seattle Mariners. So awesome. He also has a master's and a doctorate of occupational therapy from USC. So welcome, Kea Lee. Aloha, nice to meet you all. All right. Yeah, so let's get into it because there's always an ever-changing need of the seniors of the elderly generation. And you're the franchise owner of Carrying Transitions, which help seniors with decluttering, downsizing, cleaning, even relocation, and estate sales as well. So I mean, it's a much-needed company and service that you provide. So let's start off with how did you get into this business? Well, I got into this business in the 90s, just helping families move items and moving from one home to another home. And then when I went to college in San Francisco and at USC, I became a Mason. So we were helping the D-Mole boys and the Rainbow Girls. It's a nonprofit organization fundraised by collecting people's grad sale items and then reselling them for scholarships. And then when I became a Shriner and a Hawaiian Civic Club member, a lot of the times a lot of kupuna were asked to help with their donations or items that when they're moving out of a care home. Where I did my master's program was at Luna Lilo Home. A lot of times they are limited in space, so they would ask if I can come and pick up some items and donate it to Salvation Army savers or Goodwill. But it's been from the 90s to most recently. So the statistics, there were 76 million people born between 1946 and 1964, meaning that there's 11,000 baby boomers are hitting the retirement age every single day in the US. And in Hawaii, there's a significant portion of the aging population. So I think, of course, you're always going to get family help, I could get extremely overwhelming. And I think that's when they come to you, Kali, for this type of help, right? Correct. So living in Hawaii, we have the largest dairy-active population in the country. So even though statistically, it shows the baby boomers have a certain percentage. Nationwide, Hawaii is a much higher percentage. People live longer here. However, the hard part about it is most of the people that move to Hawaii, which aren't locals, their kids don't live here as well. So a lot of our clients are people that just flew into retirement in Hawaii. But when a spouse or a loved one passes away, they need to relocate to where their kids are back on the continent to US. And they move into a 55-plus over community or with their kids. And as you know, we live on an island. It's really easy to accumulate a lot of stuff. But these things have meaning to people. And we help them sift through these memories and these items, things that have limited space where they're going to move to. And we help them pack those items that make sense to ship back and the rest we donate to other nonprofit communities. So when you go into someone's home, so someone gives you a call, my parents need help, you go to their house, and it's really overwhelming. They still have cars that don't run. They have a lot of documents, paperwork, bank statements. They have almost, they might have maybe items of high value. Maybe watches, jewelry. So what do you do? So I'll take you out. Can you walk us through the process? Right, I'll walk you right through the process. So normally we get a call, it comes into the call center, and then they notify us the name of the family that need help, whether it came from a realtor or a state planner or a lawyer. We call the family, find out what their needs are, and we work around what they need to get done. So most of the time, they have to move out because they're loving either their dad or their mom passed away, so they need to move them back out of the back. And they either have to sell their properties or move them into a care home or whatnot. So what we do is we go there and we assess the situation, find out, are they selling the house? What kind of timeframe do we have? And we give them an estimate on the clean out. And to offset the cost, we also help them, because some of the items, they donated it prior to us coming in, and those items could have been used to offset the cost of the clean out or could have been optioned off, whether it's on the carrying transition CPBeds website or at an estate sale that we can also have one for them at their home, but if they don't want people coming to their home, we can also sell their items at the Aloha Stadium Swatney. So once we figure out what their plan or what their needs are, we can determine our course of action on how we want to tackle the job and try to find a solution that best fits their timeframe and their budgets. So you're almost like a complete solution, one-stop shop, for any families that need not just to sell or junk removal, but even to sell some items of value and to actually donate to Goodwill or other types of nonprofits. Correct. So sometimes they have items that cost them jury. Sometimes they think, oh, it's just cost them, but you don't know. Some of the jury there could be high-end cost them jury, Cartier, Chanel, I mean, some name brands. They could be 14, 18, 24-hour gold. I've had one story where a lady used to work at Tiffany in San Francisco, and she moved home. Her husband passed away, and she needed to move into a senior home. And she didn't think she could afford it. But after we made her, we found out that she had cost them jury. A lot of Tiffany should have been grabbing over the years. We posted watches. We're going for four grand. Her necklaces. We're going for a couple thousand, 18-carat gold jury, even Ming's jury, Gump's jury. Things that they didn't know. You can get way more per gram than selling it to a pawn shop for 20 bucks for 14K. You can get anywhere from $100 to $150 per gram for Ming's juries. Like, they went out of business in the 90s. So a lot of the families that we work with have these. These are like the Tiffany and company of Hawaii families. They would pass down their Ming's, Dragon Phoenix, bracelet to their loved ones or whatnot. But we find those gold coins, silver coins, artwork, some houses that we've cleaned out. They didn't realize the painting on the wall was worth $10,000, even books. So what we try to advise families is to wait on donating items or throwing them away. Let us go in and make a thorough assessment because we also been working at the collector shows that they have every year at the Blaisdell, Eileen and Wayne shows. So we have a very good idea of what things are worth. And we just don't want to throw away money, you know? So... You know, that brings like a good point because you're bringing up all these high-end jewelry and watches and I wouldn't really know, you know, some of the brand names that you mentioned. So I'm going to just kind of ask you a point blank question when it regards to trust, right? Because I think when it comes to these types of very personal belongings and personal items, and, you know, we kind of know each other more recently and I feel like, you know, you're definitely someone that could trust. But when it comes to your team members and someone going in, you know, for the first time, how do you build that trust and how can any consumers trust you and your company? Well, being there, most of our business is in Hawaii. People don't really care how much you know until they know how much you care. Zig Ziglar would say that. But the reason is you need to show aloha, you need to show respect and then people will open up to you. And, you know, of course, growing up in Hawaii, it's not so much what college you went to, it's like what high school you went to and they try to make that familial connections first to see, you know, maybe there's some kind of common bond that either a family friend or somewhere that, you know, they can make that connection and trust. And you kind of want to build that trust from the get go because you forget there's other companies, other moving companies out there and I don't want to talk too much about the other companies but focus in on ours. A lot of times they will go in there and they aren't, you know, they're not familiar with things of value, things of sentimental value to the families. They will just go in, grab everything and chuck it or they will sell it themselves without the families knowing that they're not going to see a penny from that. So I think the beauty of building that trust is just being straightforward from the upfront, say, hey, there's going to be three things we're going to do. We're either going to donate your items, you can get the tax receipt, if you're going to sell your property, you can give that to your accountant or whatnot. We're either going to dispose of your items or we're going to sell your items. And then when we sell your items, we work on a percentage, inventory, things of value. There's sometimes they don't know that they have something of value. They think it's not, you know, like old Aloha shirts. I mean, I can go on forever. One family that we worked with, they were loaded Rainspooners Aloha shirts, Kamehameha brand, Dukanamoku Aloha shirts in Hawaii Kai. They donated half the inventory to Goodwill but not knowing that those shirts, you can still resell on the market anywhere between $60 to $250. So there's a lot of value in clothing, even vintage clothing from the 70s, 80s. There's a huge market of shoes, as well as, you know, we get comics, we get cards, baseball cards. You know, you think about what baby boomers collected back then. And, you know, those things are worth money. Sometimes more, you know, you can get more of the items that they're willing to throw away that would easily cover whatever costs of moving the items from Hawaii to continental US or the cost of the clean out. So building that trust from the beginning and then also letting them know that, you know, that we value their items and we tell them the three things that we're gonna do it, dispose of or sell, it really helps. And we close maybe nine out of 10 of the deals because of that by being straight up with the families from the get goals. Yeah, yeah. And actually from our experience, you know, with you just dealing with one of the properties, you know, you were referred from one of my real estate colleagues and referrals are always one of the best ways to work with the engineer. And from the people, yeah, I mean, you were very straight up. We could sell certain things, donate, you know, most of the clothes and then, you know, dispose of the rest. And then you even mentioned, you know, when it comes to the documents, you know, there's a lot of statements and personal documents lying around. So you mentioned that you actually shred those documents. Is that right? Yeah, so a lot of times realtors or lawyers will ask us if they have titles for the vehicles, if they have, if they can find a will or families are asking, you know, maybe anything, family photos, things that, birth certificates and, you know, certain items, we try and look for the families. But most of the time, these are personal documents or bank statements, things of that sort. So we would shred them and properly dispose of them as opposed to just throwing it in a rubbish can where somebody can look and then steal your identity and do something fraudulent. We make sure that everything is disposed of. And we make sure that the families are comfortable knowing that, you know, we are doing everything we can to make sure that we protect our identity as well as make sure that we get the belongings that they want back, you know, either jury, you know. You know, there's times where, for example, we would find a Bible. They didn't know the combination to the safe. I'll find a Bible. There's numbers in there. We'll open up the safe. The families crying because they have all the mom's jury and things of that sort in there. So it makes us feel good knowing that these families are able to retrieve and get back things that will help them in that bereavement process, you know. Because a lot of times when we get called, they're on a timeframe in Hawaii because rents still gotta get paid. The mortgage still gotta get paid. And these families really haven't gone through the bereavement process or setting up the funerals or for their loved ones and whatnot. So we try and come there, come in. We come in and try and make it as smooth and as comfortable for them. And a lot of times they're very happy because it's a huge weight comes off of their shoulders knowing that the house is cleaned out. The realtors can hire the contractors, put it on the market stage of the house. And it's overwhelming if you don't know what you're doing and when you come in and someone's passed away, you've got years of memories. You always have a family member that's really emotionally attached to items. Some just wanna sell the property but we work with boat members to make sure that we're all on the same page and making this transaction as smooth as possible for them. Yeah, cause I think what you said is right on point about giving even myself a piece of mind that you will handle it the right way. And especially when you're trading confidential or personal documents that the families may no longer need, I thought that was next level because as a former attorney now representing real estate clients, it's I think the vital trust and confidentiality to make sure that it doesn't go outside the home. Correct. And have you had situations where someone passes away, the family members call you but then some other family members still have access to the home? Yes. Yeah, so how do you deal with that type of situation where I mean, I've seen, unfortunately I've seen things when someone passes away and there's homes and valuable items involved and people kind of go outside their normal self. Right. Yeah, those situations when they're trying to, I guess, so-called take some of the items before you guys are able to get in there. Yeah, it's really hard because for example, this past month we had two separate families. One was a family member who would not leave the house and the mom stayed on the property because until that daughter who's in her, say in her fifties was able to find another place, her husband wouldn't come around. As soon as that mom moved out, they're at that house trying to ransack and take things that they could use to pay for their own items. So what we do at the realtor is we make sure, number one, we changed all the locks because our job is for helping the mom and getting the items sold because she could use the money to go into a 55 plus over community, but it's hard because when you do it family, there's a lot of times where either a spouse, I mean a spouse, but a daughter or son still are connected and they need the money for some reason, whether it is to support drugs or whatnot, but we try and make sure that we secure the home first and make sure that our client is aware that these things will happen. And then sure enough, after we let them know, you know, the daughter and her husband would come back to the house this past month actually. Another instance would be, I'm not saying all realtor is that, but sometimes when we do a clean-out or a family or neighbors know that we're doing a clean-out, they try to go in the house and try and grab whatever they want as well, not knowing that we worked with the family members in saying, hey, we're gonna sell this, this, this and that. And then when we get in there, sometimes we'll say save for, I won't name any realtor's, I won't name any neighbors, but they'll come in and take items knowing that they're gonna sell the house or they're going through the bereavement process with a loss of a husband or spouse that they're gonna borrow an item. You know how I notorious for borrowing items and not returning, right? So yesterday we did a job with a neighbor, borrowed three weeks ago, a lawnmower. And then when the homeowner wanted it back, they were actually selling it at a garage sale. She showed me the sign that they were trying to sell it for 50 bucks. And I'm like, so part of our job is you know, you're gonna have all these aqua birds or you're gonna have all these alamiki crabs, you know, trying to take advantage of the situation. And it's sad, but I think it happens all over the world probably. So what we try to do is make sure that we protect the valuables, things that we know we can make the client the money back and we'll either take it out, put it in storage after we inventory everything. And we'll post it on cdbids.com or sell it at having a state sale outside of the home because like you have family members coming over and say, hey, that's mine and this and that or they said that I could have that after that. Said I could have this after you passed away. You know, there's a lot of different scenarios that we go through, but the main thing is making sure that we protect the client's inventory and you know, getting them the money that they need to move on with their life, whether they're moving to like a care home or a 55 plus over community or paying for the items to be shipped over to the continental US and so forth. But yeah, there's a lot of things that we see that you know, sometimes I wanna, you know I don't have hair so I can't put my hair out but at the same time, but it's just making sure that the family feels safe and knowing that their belongings are safe with us. But yeah, it's hard, but we have a system where we end up taking up like the coins, things of that value. And there's other times where we will show they will ask us, oh, what are some things that are valuable that we can sell? And then of course you point out certain items and then another family member ends up, oh, okay, those are the items we wanna keep. So most times it's a fine balance. You gotta kind of feel the families out and what are the intentions of your client and maybe the siblings of the client or the kids to see if they're there really to help the mama or the dad out or they're there to just cherry pick things so that they can spend money on whatever else that they want, you know, that's helping their parents off or grandparents. No, it's definitely always an adventure, something, you know, you always learn something new. And in terms of your services, is there something that you guys will not do? For example, like if there are like cars that's not running or, you know, let's start with that. How about cars? Like whether they're not running, you know, is that, do you guys handle that yourself? Yes, we handle cars. So maybe four out of five houses, we have to do it. You know, everybody in Hawaii has a collectible car or something that when they move, there's like two or three cars in one household. So what we do is we work with Kenny Foundation, we'd either donate the cars if there's no titles or we scrap the cars out. And if there are titles that we can resell the cars, we work with the realtor or the lawyer to make sure that they can get the proper paperwork so we can put it up for auction. And once it's up for auction, then we can transfer title to the after payment, of course, to the new car buyer or truck buyer motorcycles. So I mean, the house that we were currently working on has Corvette Harley and Rubicon Jeep. And in the house prior to that, we have a Toyota flair side, black truck and another Harley. So there's a lot of vintage cars that we also find in there that need to be put on the market because we try every which way to make sure that we can make money for our clients so that they can use that money because funerary expenses and traveling and shipping items as well as doing the cleanup, it can get very costly. So wherever we can pull that penny out to help the client offset the cost. And most times they don't have money until escrow. We understand that or they have to go through probate or whatnot. So a lot of times they don't have that upfront cost but we work around with the families and the realtors as well to make sure that we can help that family out. No, I think that's very, very honorable of you and your company. And so is there something that you guys don't handle? Or is that on a case-by-case basis or anything in the house? Well, bedbugs now. But no, we do it. No, it's control. We've seen it all, rats, bedbugs, cockroaches we can do it all, but I don't know. I mean, I haven't turned down any job that I know I could not handle. I mean, like I said, we have partnerships with other cleaners, with other businesses or non-profits that will help us make sure that we can get the job done. If there's a task that we can't do, we partner with others, like I said, to help us with big jobs, whether it's dumping of chemicals. We make sure that we go through the correct process because a lot of times they have extra paint, oil in the garage. And then I guess the, maybe one, if there's black mold in the house, maybe we would have to go through because we can't expose our workers to black mold or what. So we would have to call outside help to make sure that the house is safe for us to clean. But during that time, we help with, we pretty much do everything. I mean, we work with guns, bullets. We found grenades, things from Vietnam War. We work with the authorities to make sure that everything is properly disposed of. Yeah, so. Oh, okay. Well, you guys are true. One stop, complete solution, carrying transitions, relocation, decluttering, cleanouts, the state sales. And I think that's fantastic. And as we're winding down, I mean, time flies so fast. Is there any last message that you would want to share with our viewers about yourself, about the company? Anything you wanna share? Yeah, so I guess when dealing with companies, if you do a majority of the time, it's a loss of a spouse or a loved one or maybe the cost of living. People are getting like, what's the term, you and Tongi get priced out of paradise? So people have to move, not just baby boomers but younger generations as well. Just make sure that you try and maximize, you work hard for your money. And the reason why you're either moving away or for one reason or another is, is because the cost of living is high. You wanna make sure you get a reputable company that will help you with that transition. And Caring Transitions is the number one company right now in the country as well as in Hawaii because we have, we don't just clean up the house but we also help you sell your wares or your valuables to make sure that you can get that extra money to help you with that move. Yeah, wow. Well, Kelly Lam, franchise owner of Caring Transitions, you were fantastic. And I'm so glad to be working with you on one of the homes right now or one of our clients where the spouse passed away. And yeah, no, I think you really bring value and trust to our clients. So thank you so very much, Kelly. Yeah, while I will. Thanks for having me on Tingtec Hawaii, Aloha. Hey, Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Tingtec Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website, tingtecawaii.com. Mahalo.