Assisted Living: Start Here
Jun 09, 2025
So you want to open an assisted living facility—but where do you even begin?
This blog walks you through the first steps to get your business off the ground the right way.
Whether you're a nurse, a real estate investor, or someone with a big heart and a big vision, this is where you start. Let’s go! ๐
Check out this video, too;
Why These First Steps Matter
Most people get stuck because they’re trying to figure everything out all at once.
The truth? You only need to focus on the next right step.
Here’s why going through this process matters:
โ
It saves you time and money
โ
It helps you avoid costly rookie mistakes
โ
It sets the foundation for a facility people actually want to live in
If you're not sure where to start, don’t worry—you’re in the right place.
Step 1: Choose Your Launch Path
There’s more than one way to start an assisted living facility. Your first big decision is which path is right for you.
๐ Buy an existing facility – Fastest path but requires capital
๐ Convert a home you already own – Lower cost, great for control
๐ Rent a home to convert – Less risk, great for testing the waters
๐๏ธ Build from the ground up – Highest cost, but full customization
๐ก Need help comparing options? Check out the Profit Path Tool to see which option is best for you.
Step 2: Understand Your Local Requirements
Assisted living rules vary depending on your state. Some are more small-facility-friendly than others.
๐ Here’s what to research:
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Licensing requirements
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Zoning rules
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Staffing ratios and training
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Medicaid vs. Private Pay options
Look for areas where small residential homes are supported.
Step 3: Learn the Business Model
Before you invest time or money, you need to understand how assisted living makes money.
๐ฐ Revenue = Residents × Monthly Rent
๐ Expenses = Staffing, food, insurance, mortgage, licensing, etc
Most facilities aim for 20–30% profit margins, and some break even at 5–6 residents.
๐งฎ PRO TIP: Use our free Underwriting Calculator to plug in your numbers and see what it looks like for you.
Step 4: Know Who You Want to Serve
Your ideal resident shapes everything—your license, location, staffing, and care model.
Ask yourself:
๐ต Do I want to serve seniors with memory care needs?
โฟ Adults with disabilities?
๐ธ Medicaid residents or private-pay only?
The clearer your vision, the smoother the process.
Next Steps: Take Action
You’re not behind—you’re right on time.
Here’s what to do next:
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Download the Business Plan Checklist
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Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
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Take weekly action toward your first facility
Got questions? Drop them in the comments. Let’s build this together ๐ช
Show full transcript ๐
Transcript
00:00:04
hey friend it is Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living investing excited to have you here with me on the channel today uh and go through a topic that I hear a lot from a lot of people it is how to get started in Assisted Living so uh let me get things going on here for those of you that are new um Assisted Living investing is here we're here to help you um help beginners learn how to start their Assisted Living business my goal with everything thing that I do is to help you launch your Assisted Living
00:00:32
business in the next 12 months uh it's it's what I'm focused on doing and what I'm trying to do to help you get started um on on your journey to help you achieve your goals uh time and Financial Freedom to to get where you want to be um so I am going to share my screen and also make sure this gets over to the Facebook group and sorry lots of things going on with this thing um add that to the scene while I am getting this shared over to the Facebook group uh remind I want to remind you to get over to the
00:01:02
website Assisted Living investing. Nets and get your free business plan checklist we're going to have a ticker going across the bottom and um you'll also be able to I've got the link up here that checklist is is what a lot of what we're going to be talking about today um it's how you can get started how you can move things along and uh get to you know where you want to go um with with things so um let me make this public we're going to grab the link share now um sorry about this I had this all
00:01:38
planned out in my head and then um then stuff happened um let's see okay we'll post that there that should now be on the Facebook group so um we should be getting this going live and everything's good so uh to give you a little more background about me who I am and uh you know why you should listen to me I guess my name is Brandon guson own and operate two assisted living facilities I live in Salt Lake and um my facilities one is in Colorado Springs and the other is in NAA Idaho uh which is near boisey so I
00:02:11
operate those remotely and have experienced doing that since 2020 so three and a half years now um as of the recording of this video and um you know I I love the ability to kind of go in there and help people out through through that process and just like the impact that we could have on our residents our staff everybody and then um created Assisted Living investing to help people U help beginners get started because I love coaching I love mentoring people um I have been in the healthcare world for over a decade I have a MERS in
00:02:42
healthcare administration and have worked for a lot of um nonprofits large companies and things like that doing a lot of data analytics but also have exposure to a lot of different areas um I've also secured over $1.5 million in SBA F funding to help me acquire these facilities so I have a lot of experience there to help you know help get things going where they need to go and um yeah just have have a lot of experience and love sharing it with with people like you to help you uh get get moving along
00:03:14
along your path to to launching your Assisted Living business if you're a newbie and you're here just kind of trying to learn how to do this where to start which is what we're talking about today make sure you type in newbie down below and if you're an operator then type in operator um and I would love to hear from you and and your experience and getting started and how you got there so comment your story down below as well now let's get into the topic for today today's video a lot of what I
00:03:40
teach um it boils down to Five Pillars and today we're going to focus on the first pillar of of the program uh of what I teach to people because it's it's where you start it's what you need to do it's going to create the base the foundation for everything that you're going to do so in here we're going to be talking about your vision where you want this to go you know three five years down the road what what do you envision for yourself to get there um we're going
00:04:05
to be talking about creating a business plan which really is the foundation for everything that you're going to do the third thing is underwriting making sure that you are comfortable with the numbers and you have a good investment ready to go and the fourth thing is market research just making sure that you have the spot that you want to get into so inside of the first pillar this is these are the four things that we're going to be chatting about and um let's start off with vision so
00:04:32
your vision um what it is uh what I what I suggest that you do is get it out of your head um it's it's so easy for us to have things and and think inside of your head oh man I want to have three facilities I wanted to to look like this I want to um I want to build um something incredible over here I I I talked to so many of you um in our strategy calls you can sign up for one of those at Assisted Living investing. net strategy uh free call to kind of dive into where you're at and see if I
00:05:01
can help you out or not um but in there I love talking with you and and getting uh catching your vision it's it's so exciting for me to hear what you all uh want to build uh it's very um just like encouraging helps me want to do better as well so I know that you watching this um yeah you um you have this incredible Vision you know what you want to do and you want to make something incredible and can do that but what you need to do is get it out of your head and get it on paper get it on uh digital paper or
00:05:36
whatever it is you need to get it out of your head so that um you can process it a little bit better it's going to become more clear to you and the exercise of getting that out of your head also helps solidify it um in in what you're trying to do so that's that's what I really suggest that you do is you get that thing out of your head and write it down um talk about it with people as well that's what doing these strategies calls where I have conversations with you and you're telling me about it like that is
00:06:03
helping solidify it in in your mind and you know a lot of you I hear this from so many people that they don't feel like they can talk to anybody else about it but in our conversations you can um which like for me like thank you I love that you're you feel confident enough to and comfortable enough to to share that with me but you can share it with other people start talking to people start opening your mouth and talking about it because that's what's going to drive you to to actually achieve that Vision don't
00:06:32
be scared some people are going to laugh at you and say that's crazy why would you do that most people are going to be like that is a really cool idea um like keep me posted on how it's going like that that's it can feel scary it really can I get it um but a lot of people are actually going to be very encouraging it's going to help you out through the process it's okay to talk about it and get it out of uh get it out there uh into the world and and let people know what you want to do um what I suggest do
00:07:00
though is do this like three to five years in the future and and think about what you want that to look like three to five years in the future do something that's a little bit more near- term the reason why I say doing like just three to five years and not 10 20 years in the future our brains are really they can't they can't conceive what that looks like you know 10 20 years in the future three years five years is even maybe a little bit too far but three years um we can we can conceive of what can happen in in a
00:07:27
three-year period and we can really build that out um there's several great books about this um one that I love uh is the 12we year and uh helps helps you build that Vision uh for what you want things to look like uh three years five years in the future bring it back to a year and now let's start breaking this down into 12we chunks or a quarter um a quarter of the year um type chunks and start really making some progress on it so it's a great book um I will try to link that down below um for you um after
00:08:00
after the YouTube video goes live so it won't be on Facebook but it will be on YouTube so make sure you go and grab that if you're interested because it is it's one of my favorite books I absolutely love it um but there's a lot of books that kind of go into the idea of doing that okay so that's your vision that's the first thing you want to do is build that Vision so that you know where you're going create that road map for yourself help you get to to where you want to go the next thing is building a
00:08:27
business plan and this is the thing this is actually what I call this pillar is the business plan pillar um it builds the foundation for everything that you want to do inside of your Assisted Living business um it's going to give you the clarity that you um know what to do gives you the road map for what you're going to build with this business um but it also gives you something you can go in hand to somebody else A lender investor partner whoever it is and say this is this is what I want to do this
00:08:54
is what the business is going to look like and the other thing that I think a lot of people um they get caught up in is I can't build that business plan because I don't have the property I don't have the the right place for uh for what it's going to look like I don't know everything that's okay you don't need to know everything to start building this business plan you can you can really um put all of these things together and then you can iterate you can change you can make updates to it um
00:09:20
as you go but getting it out on paper um starting to build that is going to build the foundation for what you need to do and we've got the ticker going across I'll have links and things um if you're on Facebook comment um I think it's plan um and and reach out to me and I'll get you the link there or um you can also just reach out to me on Facebook and we'll get you links for the business plan checklist but this is um really one of the things that that that checklist is going to really help you get to where
00:09:48
you want to go so Assisted Living investing. netb checklist is how you can get that and also I have the business planning guide so Assisted Living investing. net BPG uh for business planning guide um is a COR that is all about what we're talking about today um so make sure you go and check that out as well um there will be links on on YouTube and if you want something on Facebook message me anyways um in the business plan you're going to be identifying who you're going to serve you want to be talking about who that
00:10:16
you know what what population do you want to serve the elderly do you want to serve somebody's mental health do you want to do something that is Special Needs what who do you want to serve and you want to write that down you want to get clear on exactly who that is that you want to serve you want to identify how many beds you want to have um you know do you want it to be a small care home that's two three four six beds or do you want to have a 16 bed home or do you want something that is you know 30
00:10:41
plus beds and and you want something that that's really nice um but that's 30 plus beds what what do you want that to look like how many beds do you want to have in your home you want to identify that you are what you're trying to do here is get clarity you might have an idea in your head but like we just talked about in the vision exercise you want to get that out of your head you want to put it down there um and you want to make sure that um that that that it's on paper uh it's going to help
00:11:08
solidify things in your mind and you might put on the paper um I want six beds and then you look at it and and you're thinking about it and you're like maybe maybe I don't want six maybe I want three or maybe I want 12 or you know it kind of lets you put it out there and and lets you look at it outside of outside of your body um put it on a piece of paper and then h is that the right number for me is that the thing that I want to do or not and then you can make changes from from there um
00:11:35
that's why it's so important for you to kind of get these things out of your head and put it on there um it also like I mentioned has it's something you can give to other people um give it to your spouse give it to a family member have them look it over and and tell you if you're crazy or not go talk to your uncle that has a successful business and be like this is what I want to do for my business plan I'm not asking you to invest in it but can you read through this and tell me um
00:12:00
does this look good to you um get feedback go um there's so many places where you can go and get this feedback but building that business plan it really is the foundation of everything that you're going to be building here as you start your Assisted Living business something you got to do you got to figure that out make sure that you are doing this the right way get the the business plan checklist um in the links below or the the ticker that's going across U make sure you grab that because
00:12:25
it's it's going to give you what you need to help you get started and building this business plan okay next thing is underwriting and this is a phase this is something that kind of fits into this phase and it's also EXT extremely important underwriting for for those that are unfamiliar with the term is um it's it's kind of looking at it and seeing if it's going to make sense from a financial perspective you are um running the numbers you're you want to just make sure that it looks good before
00:12:52
you move forward with things so you can get my free underwriting calculator um just go to the website Assisted Living investing. net um there's buttons all over the place for for that or you can go directly to Assisted Living investing. netal which I have right here on the on the on the page um that I'm sharing so go grab that a great resource it's the tool that I created um as I was getting into it and I mentioned the business planning guide uh there's a section in that goes really deep into
00:13:19
actually how to use that calculator because for those of you that are are new to Excel and and spreadsheets and things like that uh it can feel overwhelming so that business planning guide course goes through how to really um work that out so what you're trying to do here in the Prof in the underwriting stage is ensure that you have a profitable investment that your opportunity is profitable because you might in your business plan write that you want to have six beds and but you're trying to do Medicaid and your debt
00:13:49
service is $5,000 a month and you start running the numbers and you're like this doesn't make any sense what I don't want people to do is to get down the path and be like I this is my vision I want to do I'm going to figure it out and dang it six beds is going to make it work um and we're going to be fine here and then you get into it you're operating for three to six months and and you're like this is the worst decision I ever made like I I don't have any money I'm super
00:14:15
stressed out there is nothing at the end of the tunnel you want to spend time in this phase um underwriting and making sure that things work from a financial standpoint as much as you want to help people and and serve people and that's why you're getting into assisted living you still have to make sure that you're making a profit and and making sure that you understand everything I have a ton of videos that kind of go into the major expenses of Assisted Living um so make sure you go just like go to my channel
00:14:40
um search for those things there too many for me to like link back to um here and linking on a live just doesn't work very well but go look for those because they're going to help you understand what those what those big expenses are and the biggest one is your wages what you're paying your employees so you want to make sure that's in there you want to make sure you have a good idea of what your desk service serves maybe your insurance the food the amount of food you're going to be paying uh amount of
00:15:04
food you got to be buying for people uh as well and um there's a fifth one but I can't remember what it is off the top of my head but um you want to understand what those are compared to how much money you're going to be bringing in and is it going to work for you is it going to be profitable you want to check those things out you want to um also get a good understanding of how much money you're going to need to get started um and this is something I talk to people a lot about this I would suggest that you
00:15:31
get two to three months worth of operating expenses up front now if you go the route of getting an SBA loan um you can build that into it or if you're doing something by yourself you want to try just kind of get things started you have the house maybe um you still want to do the underwriting to make sure it's going to be profitable and figure out what those upfront monthly expenses are going to be for you so that you can put into your budget you know 50 60 $100,000 so that you have it there to
00:15:57
draw on when you got to make payroll and things like that as you're getting the beds full um that that's something you want to make sure that you do but this underwriting phase is how you figure out exactly how much money you need to help you get started there and understanding those expenses we just kind of went through all of that as well is is the other thing here uh the more time you spend doing that and a great way to do this um is get on Loop net go look for a property that looks kind of like what
00:16:25
you want to to be buying um you know it's a a 10 bed facility in I don't know Wisconsin um and you've decided that's where you want to be and and you go and you find that thing and you talk to the broker and even if you're not going to buy this go get it sign the NDA the non-disclosure agreement get access to their pnls and use that to help you get a good understanding of what those expenses might look for you um what they might look like for you as you're trying to get things up and running um that's
00:16:57
one of the best ways you can do this for free to figure out specifically for you what you want to do that Vision that mass that business plan that you created um making sure that those expenses are in line that's a way for you to figure out exactly what they're going to look like um go do that and if if you underwrite it and you're like dang this is the opportunity for me then cool like go for it if you get it and you're like you know what what I need actually is 15 beds I can't do this with 10 then cool
00:17:25
you figured that out and and now you know what to to look for you've got criteria that you can do which is my second pillar in finding the the right property we're not going to get into that today but you're building that criteria so you can give that to a broker or somebody else to help you out through the process and finding the right um property for you so all of this is is kind of building that base again to make sure that you're in a good spot okay the next section here is market research so with
00:17:51
market research and I inside of the business planning guide I talked about it before I've got a link right here um on the page Assisted Living investing. net BPG one of the bonus items that you get inside of the business planning guide is a market research guide that I've created um for you that's going to go through and um kind of give you some insight into um how I would go about identifying which markets are good and um and gives you the resources the the links and everything for so you could do
00:18:21
this research on your own if I haven't already done it for you in the market research guide um I plan on updating that on an annual basis as well so the one that's in there is about a year old um but I plan on getting something new out um soon and if you purchase that business planning guide you get the updated version every time it comes out so it's going to always be the most current version um plus old versions we'll leave that available for you okay anyways um market research this is
00:18:49
helping you identify where your house is going to be located and this is what what I like to do is I start at a state level and figure out okay which states are really good fit for me um where are people going to retire um where do people like to live U what's the political standpoint there because to to be frank more conservative leaning states have less regulations that you have to deal with it's a little bit easier to operate in more conservative leaning States um regardless of your political standpoint like that's just
00:19:21
the reality of working in healthcare um there there's probably extra funding opportunities though if you go the route of of a more liberal leaning state so just want to be kind of clear there that that's something you want to take into consideration as you're doing your your market research you want to look at how much people are making um what's the age groups of people that are in there so all of this is inside of that market research module inside of the business planning guide um but you're you're
00:19:47
going to do this at a state level then you want to look down and dig down into some of the other like kind of maybe the larger market areas inside of that state and see which one um works best for you and I'm not going to claim to to know all of the the different markets that are available but uh suffice it to say like I've even looked at States I think it was North Dakota it was either North or South Dakota I can't remember a few years ago um but I was like amazed to to think there's there's actually like two
00:20:16
or three um pretty decently sized areas that I could look at in one of those States um to give me an idea and even somebody that lives in Utah that's a a relatively small State uh you know I was think thinking oh there's like just a spot in in one of those States but in reality there's there's a few there's a few markets and you can really dive deep into those and start getting the metrics there's incredible websites that give you this data so you want to do that market research figure out where you
00:20:43
want um this house to be and then you want to set that house criteria as well that you created um back in these other stages but you're going to say you know I want 10 beds I want to serve an elderly population so I need something that you know is a ranch style home that has no stairs on it um that kind of a thing big wide hallways no basement you know it kind of helps you set that criteria so you can take as I mentioned in pillar two going and finding the right home and getting that over to
00:21:13
people that are on your team a broker an agent whoever it is to help you identify um what you need at that point so that's the the the fourth thing if I'm remembering uh my numbers here doing the market research help you figure out exactly um where you want um that house to be okay so if there are any questions there's been a few of you that have been live here with me for a lot of the the time that we've been on here um so thanks for sticking with me hopefully uh this has been helpful for you if you
00:21:43
have any questions Now's the Time to ask those I've got some time to to answer a few of those um but while you are typing those up want to remind those that um that are watching to like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified when we put out this content we are going live live every Tuesday I put out long form content on Thursday so I have a lot of information coming out to you uh and then a lot of resources over on the website Assisted Living investing. net as I mentioned I
00:22:09
love coaching and helping people I get the question often actually from people why why do you do this why don't you just like lean into assisted living and I am like I'm I'm building out my portfolio is something that that we're working on doing but I love coaching people I really do I love mentoring and coaching I have a a good background in doing that I taught at the University of Utah um ran an internship program um was a mentor um for for people in my graduate degree program as well at the
00:22:37
University of Utah I love getting in helping people and coaching you um and helping you along the way if you want one of those free strategy sessions get over to assisted living investing. netstat and uh we can set up one of those um we just kind of go deep and I see if get a feel for what your goals are what barriers you have and see if if I'm a good fit for you or not and if not that's cool you know um but if I am I love helping you and would love to to bring you inside of one of my programs
00:23:05
and help you along the way because at Assisted Living investing what I'm here to do is help beginners like you learn how to launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months like that's my goal it's everything that I'm driving towards is helping you get to that point so um want to remind you as well get over to the website thank you for being here uh get over to the website get the business planning checklist Assisted Living investing nbp checklist uh so you can get access to
00:23:31
that and it will help you uh along your journey and does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we're here to help you through the process start to finish to help you reach your goals reach your dreams and reach uptain that time and Financial Freedom that you've been looking for well thank you for watching thanks for being here and we'll talk to you next time thanks for watching have a great day
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