How to Discover the Best Markets for Thriving Assisted Living Success
Mar 14, 2025
Starting an assisted living business is exciting and rewarding—but choosing the right location is critical to long-term success. Pick the wrong market, and you may struggle to fill beds. Pick the right one, and you’ll thrive in a growing, in-demand business!
In this guide, we’ll break down how to find the best market for your assisted living facility, what factors to consider, and where the top opportunities are today.
Check out the video, too:
π Start with a Strong Foundation
Before you start scouting locations, it’s important to lay the groundwork for success. This means having:
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A Solid Business Plan – Your roadmap for getting funding and running your facility.
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Accurate Financial Projections – Use tools like our free underwriting calculator to estimate profitability.
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Thorough Market Research – Choosing the right city and state before investing time and money.
By tackling these steps first, you’ll save yourself from costly mistakes later.
π How to Choose the Best Market for Assisted Living
Finding the right market isn’t just about picking a sunny state—it’s about understanding trends, demand, and competition. Here’s what to focus on:
1οΈβ£ Demographics: Where Are Seniors Moving? π΅
- Look for cities with a high and growing senior population (65+).
- Avoid college towns or areas dominated by younger demographics.
- Consider states with tax benefits for retirees, like Florida, Texas, and Arizona.
2οΈβ£ Competition: Too Many Facilities = Trouble π§
- Check for oversaturation. If a small town already has five large facilities, it may be hard to gain traction.
- Look for areas with a growing senior population but limited facilities—this is where demand is highest!
- Use Google Maps, state directories, and industry reports to research competitors.
3οΈβ£ Lifestyle Appeal: Is It a Place Seniors WANT to Live? π΄
- Are retirees and families moving to the area?
- Are there good healthcare options, shopping, and entertainment?
- Is the climate comfortable year-round?
A good market isn’t just affordable—it’s a place where seniors can enjoy their retirement.
π Emerging Trends: Where Are People Moving?
Right now, migration trends are creating huge opportunities for assisted living investors.
π Hot Markets with Growing Senior Populations:
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Texas – High population growth in cities like Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
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Florida – A classic retiree haven, with ongoing demand for senior care.
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Arizona – Phoenix and surrounding cities are booming with retirees.
π‘ What This Means for You: If you’re looking for high-growth, high-demand markets, these states should be at the top of your list.
π Key Metrics to Analyze When Choosing a Market
Before deciding on a location, look at these five crucial factors:
π’ Population Size & Growth – Are more seniors moving in than moving out?
π° Income Levels – Can families afford your services?
π Crime Rates – Low-crime areas are more attractive for senior care.
π₯ Access to Healthcare – Are hospitals and specialists nearby?
π Quality of Life – Are there parks, restaurants, and entertainment options?
These factors will impact your ability to attract and retain residents.
πΊ Strategic State & City Selection
π‘ State-Level Research
Start by looking at states that rank highly for retirement. Check reports like:
- “Best Places to Retire” rankings
- Tax benefits for seniors
- Healthcare quality ratings
States with mild weather, lower taxes, and strong healthcare systems tend to be the best bets.
π City-Level Research
Once you choose a state, narrow down to specific cities or regions:
- Are property values affordable for assisted living investing?
- Are new hospitals, shopping centers, and homes being built? Growth means demand!
- Are there assisted living competitors already dominating the market?
π Use market research tools like the Assisted Living Launchpad to dive deeper into local trends.
β‘ Why Market Research Is Non-Negotiable
Without market research, you risk:
π« Opening in an area without enough demand.
π« Choosing a declining market where seniors are leaving.
π« Competing against too many other facilities.
With smart research, you can:
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Find hidden gem cities with high demand.
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Pinpoint locations where seniors AND their families want to live.
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Launch in a profitable, growing market that supports long-term success.
π Take the Next Step
π₯ Download our FREE Business Plan Checklist to map out your assisted living success.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:00
hey friend I'm Brandon Gustafson I help beginners launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months in today's video we're going to be getting into what is the best market for assisted living if you want some help figuring that out make sure you stick around for today's [Music] video hey friend welcome back to Assisted Living investing excited to dive into the topic today which is figuring out which is the best market for you for your assisted living facility but before we get into that I
00:00:31
want to remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net and get our free underwriting calculator a great tool to help you identify if a an opportunity is going to be profitable for you or not so go grab that free resource now let's get into the topic for today's video which Market is the best market for you for your Assisted Living business where should you be doing this and there's a lot that actually goes into trying to figure this out a lot of what I teach here inside of
00:01:00
my courses here at Assisted Living investing are there there's five phases that you have to go to and phase one the most important in my mind is building a business Foundation you absolutely have to have a business Foundation if you want to have a successful business it's it's something that you have to build now what goes into building that business Foundation there's underwriting which is why we give away the free under writing calculator um go to Assisted Living investing. net we'll just pop up
00:01:27
for you there is building the business plan that allows you it's like your Catalyst to getting funding and then there's the market research that you need to do so that you know that you've got the right Market that you're investing in the right Market those are kind of the the things that go into this foundational phase and when you move into that foundational phase it's going to and and you do this all correctly everything else really starts to fall into place uh so much easier that's why
00:01:56
we do this now when it comes to Market Research there's a lot that that goes into it what you're going to find is when you do that market research you're trying to understand if a market it can handle Assisted Living so you don't want to go somewhere where you've got a bunch of 20 and 30y old people you don't want to go to a college campus and start an assisted living facility right that that's logical that that makes a lot of sense that's I mean you wouldn't do that
00:02:21
but you still need to go and look at things just because there's those instances like a college campus that's not a good fit for assisted living it doesn't mean every other place is perfect for assisted living you need to figure out what is going to work so you need to figure that out you need to figure out is it oversaturated like are there too many assisted living facilities now there's a lot of coaching out there that that tells you if there's a big box facility in an area then
00:02:49
you're probably golden as as a residential assisted living and I would say that largely that is accurate I I think that's true now if you're in a small town and you've got like a relatively small town you know I don't know less than 50,000 people and you have five big box facilities in that little tiny town and you're not seeing the opportunity for somebody to grow just because those big box places are there does not necessarily mean that it's a good spot it could be
00:03:21
oversaturated at that point the other thing to note with that is uh yes big box facilities they they spend millions of dollars researching things that's why I would I would also recommend that you consider those types of places where those big box of places are getting put but if you also find that there's 10 or 20 other residential style houses in there you might be oversaturated in in that specific little tiny Market in that little niche uh so it's something you want to be aware of that you just kind
00:03:52
of have to look at this you have to do the research you have to figure out where people are because as much as you might think this is a perfect spot because brookdell just put one down the street that might be the case but if you dig a little bit deeper and you find that there's 15 20 residential assisted living facilities in like a 3 to five mile radius you might have too much competition and not be able to be successful so you need to do the research and figure out if it's too oversaturated I haven't seen a lot of
00:04:23
that I think we're very early on in this process here as of the recording this video in 2024 I don't think you're going to run into that but 5 10 years down the road if you're watching this video it's something you want to be aware of and and you might want to just kind of pause and and be like well what if we just went you know 15 minutes that way that town doesn't have it and and see what that looks like so you just need to do this market research you need to figure out exactly what that's going to look
00:04:46
like for you and for just your business and how you going to get this set up so look for overs saturation and then the third thing here with why market research is so important is you need to figure out if it's an area where people actually want to live if you're just like man this is the perfect house that's like a beautiful neighborhood um but people are leaving there and that's why it's a great opportunity for you because nobody wants to buy there people aren't retiring there people aren't
00:05:12
moving there that's something you want to be aware of you want to look at the trends where are people going where are people going to be and then you want to take advantage of that that influx of population let's use California right now as of the recording this video it's 2024 there's a lot of people that are leaving California to go to States like Arizona Utah Idaho Texas Florida like people are leaving California in in droves doesn't mean that you can't do this in California and be successful you
00:05:42
certainly can like there's a pathway to do this in California so I'm not telling you that at all but what I'm telling you is if you live in one of those spots where people are leaving in droves you might not want to build a facility there um you're if you're in there you know what it's like you know the micromark markets then then yes like you you know more than I do but in generalities when I see people leaving a spot it makes me a little less comfortable in wanting to invest there
00:06:11
so that's just some general guidance I'm not giving you specific about any any one market at all you need to take every single Market that you look at on a case-by Case basis to see what it's going to look like and from there decide if it's going to make sense for you or not now those are the reasons why you should be doing marketing research and I I have a a really cool tool for you it's one of my paid programs but it is my least expensive it's called the business planning guide and in that tool and
00:06:39
we'll have a link down below go to Assisted Living investing. netb PG for business planning guide in there I do all of this market research that I'm telling you about I do it for you and I update it on an annual basis so if you want that tool if you want some of that guidance or or things like that go check out the business planning guide again it's Assisted Living investing. net BPG go check that out uh you also get a really good overview of my underwriting calculator you're going to get access to
00:07:05
the business plan template and how to update that market research guide and I also give you my past financials so you can see exactly what it's going to look like for you to start a facility what those finances look like and get a feel for everything there so go check that out it's awesome awesome tool it's going to help you out so much on your investment Journey Assisted Living investing d/ BPG now let's talk about where you should be researching as you're doing this and you'll see this
00:07:31
when you get into the business planning guide and the market research tool there are two kind of big things that you want to be researching one is the state you know which state in general is is good for this and the way I like to look at this is look at trends like best places to retire where are people moving look at those types of rankings because when you have the population that you want to serve the elderly their children who are looking to retire they are looking at all of this as well um so are trying to
00:08:00
find the best places to retire so we want to look at that we want to see where people are going and when they go there their parents need assisted living they're probably going to bring them with them cuz they just up and moved to a new place and so you want to see what these Trends look like and how that's all going to work so that's number one state the second one is the city or the market we want to get a little more granular we want to look at exactly what that's going to be which specific spots
00:08:25
are best and there's a lot of criteria that actually goes into that so right here I wanted to get a little bit into that uh some of the things that you want to research as you're trying to figure this out to see if it's a good market and a good state for you start off with those Trends see where people are at move to the markets look at everything that's in that state and start looking at some of those things and then you want to dive really deep into what that's all going to look like for you as
00:08:51
well some of the things that I really like to look at and we have this in the market research tool so like don't go if you you love looking at all this stuff doing all the research yourself go do it yourself if you want somebody that's done it for you already and updates it on an annual basis check out the business plan again um it's going to save you a ton of time and give you all of this information um and if I don't have the information on a state or a city that you want like the Deep dive on
00:09:16
it I tell you exactly how to do it so you can do that and I show you how you can the resources you can go look at and and get all of this information okay so the criteria that I really like to look at are population size I want to be looking at the a of the population I want to see the trends for how it's growing or not growing over the past I think we look at it over a 3year period of time uh we look at income we're looking at the crime risk we're looking at political leanings as well and we're
00:09:45
looking at several others I actually you know I as I mentioned I do this on a on an annual basis and it's really interesting to see these Trends and some of the top states that that fit into that so if you are interested in a specific State I'd love for you to com M down below which state you are interested in working on and that will give us a little bit of a feel for where people are looking to do this and if I have like any specific insight into a good or maybe even a bad state that that
00:10:14
you're not thinking of maybe I'll drop that in to the comments down below as well but I'd love to see like a hundred comments before I start giving you out some of that information so comment down below which state you want to be working in and then I'll give you a little bit of insight here down in the comments so comment that down below so to recap what we've been talking here is market research why you need to do it what it looks like you know the the big reasons why where you're going to be
00:10:40
looking states and cities and markets and the different types of pieces of information that you should be looking into when you do a deep dive and again you can do all this research by yourself it's it's it's data it's out there you can go find it but I do it for you and in a package that is very easy plus you get a bunch of other stuff in there so go check out the business planning guide uh to help you alonger way does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know
00:11:05
how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net I'm here to help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months love helping people check out The Mastermind program as well you can go and apply for that at Alim mastermind.com application or you can go check out the the program as well at Assisted Living investing. netmaster mind and get a little bit of an overview of what that looks like I love helping people love helping you reach your goals I do this I
00:11:33
do this for you like honestly I I love doing this for people like you that want to reach their goals and they just don't know how and I make it more affordable than anybody else and love helping people get through all this so if you need that help if you need some guidance and you're just confused and overwhelmed and don't know what to do go check out the application for The Mastermind program I'll review it and give you some feedback if I can help you out then cool we can chat about that it's it's not a
00:12:00
sales call or pressure or anything like that I just give you information and let you decide and I try to make it as simple as I can because you know who you are and what you need and I just want to help you out and give you the support that you need whether that's here on YouTube watching these videos or uh getting in and joining one of the programs and helping you along your journey um so would love to see you there if you have not already make sure you like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified
00:12:27
every time we do this content we go live on Tuesdays we put out long form videos on Thursdays and would love to hear from you about what your experiences are uh so subscribe like and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we put this content out and remember it doesn't take a lot just a little bit just keep going keep making progress step by step by step and I promise you if you do that and you're consistent and persistent you will be successful thanks for watching and have a great day
00:13:04
[Music]
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