How to be an Attractive Buyer for Assisted Living
Jan 15, 2025
If you’re looking to buy an assisted living facility, one of the most important things you can do is position yourself as a buyer that sellers trust and want to work with. Sellers want to know their facility—and the residents they’ve cared for—are in good hands. Building a strong connection with the seller can make the process smoother, more efficient, and even more enjoyable.
Here’s how to make yourself an attractive buyer and stand out in the assisted living market.
Check out the video, too:
Show Passion for the Industry
Assisted living isn’t just about business—it’s about caring for people. Sellers have often poured their hearts into their facilities, and they want to hand them over to someone who genuinely cares. Showing your passion for the industry reassures sellers that their residents will be well taken care of.
How to Show Your Passion
- Share Your Story: Talk about what inspired you to enter the assisted living field.
- Highlight Your Values: Let sellers know your commitment to providing a safe, caring environment for residents.
- Ask Thoughtful Questions: Show interest in how the seller created a thriving facility and learn from their journey.
Example: “I’ve always loved helping others, especially seniors. My time volunteering at a senior center showed me how much of a difference compassionate care can make.”
Build a Personal Connection
Buying an assisted living facility is a big decision, and sellers want to feel confident in the person taking over. Building a personal connection can help establish trust and make the transition smoother.
Ways to Connect
- Find Common Ground: Do you share hobbies, like hiking or cooking? Small talk can build rapport.
- Show Interest in Their Legacy: Ask about their favorite memories of the facility.
- Be Respectful: Recognize the emotional connection the seller likely has to their business.
Pro Tip: Sellers are often more willing to share operational tips or leave behind tools (like resident records or maintenance logs) when they feel personally connected to you.
Communicate Genuinely
Sellers want to feel heard and understood, especially when discussing something as personal as their assisted living facility. Genuine communication can make all the difference.
What Genuine Communication Looks Like
- Ask Meaningful Questions: Learn about the facility’s history, culture, and operations.
- Be Transparent: If you have concerns about the facility, discuss them openly and respectfully.
- Stay Engaged: Listen actively and show you value their input.
Tip: Don’t shy away from tough topics, like maintenance challenges or difficult residents. Addressing these openly builds trust.
Why Building Relationships Matters
Even after the sale is finalized, you may need the seller’s help. Whether it’s navigating Medicaid billing, handling licensing paperwork, or understanding the facility’s quirks, having a positive relationship with the seller can save you time and headaches.
Think of the Seller as a Mentor
- Sellers can share insider knowledge about the facility, residents, and staff.
- A respectful, friendly relationship increases the likelihood they’ll support you during the transition.
Key Steps to Attract Sellers
- Share Your Passion: Let sellers see that you care deeply about assisted living and the well-being of residents.
- Build Personal Connections: Find common ground and show respect for the seller’s work and legacy.
- Communicate Genuinely: Be honest, ask thoughtful questions, and listen to what the seller has to say.
Final Thoughts
Buying an assisted living facility isn’t just a financial transaction—it’s a partnership between you and the seller. By showing your passion, forming a personal connection, and communicating genuinely, you can reassure the seller that their facility is in good hands.
Take the time to understand the seller’s motivations and the unique culture of the facility. Show them that you’re committed to continuing their legacy of care. This approach makes you a stronger buyer and sets the stage for success in the assisted living industry.
Now it’s your turn—start building those relationships and making your mark in assisted living investing!
Next Steps?
If you're serious about getting into this business, we've got two things that can really help you out:
- Download our free Business Plan Checklist. It'll help you make a great plan for your new facility.
- Want more help? Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Remember, in the world of assisted living investing, good relationships can make all the difference.
Happy investing!
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:01
[Music] hey everybody it's brandon gustafson welcome back to assisted living investing happy to have you on the channel today uh today we're going to be going over how to make yourself an attractive buyer to a seller but before we get started just a reminder we've got assistedlivinginvesting.net that you could go and and check out there make sure you're getting on there for free resources subscribe to my newsletter for future content also make sure you like comment subscribe to the channel uh
00:00:39
leave comments down below so that i know what type of content you need to help you be a successful investor in assisted living and make sure you also ring the bell so you can get content make sure you give me a big thumbs up so we can get more people involved and and just kind of create a better group overall and get people interested in assisted living investing in and help people along on this journey the last time we were talking about how to make yourself an attractive buyer to a lender and even a broker and this time
00:01:07
we're going to be talking about how to make yourself an attractive buyer to a seller the things that you need to do to make yourself an attractive buyer to a seller and why it's important to do that you're buying it from them you're probably never gonna you don't necessarily need that relationship it's not something that you're gonna be building stuff off of but i got a few pointers i wanted to share with you about it why it's important to develop a good relationship and have a good
00:01:29
experience with the seller as you're going through the process of purchasing a facility so the biggest tips that i can give you as you're going through the process to make yourself an attractive buyer to the seller is to show that you're passionate about the industry we talked about with lenders it's kind of important but they don't really care that much about your passion your interest in the asset class and what you're going to be doing there but for a seller it's really important they
00:01:54
want to know that the people that they are handing off to you as you purchase that facility that they're in good hands so make sure that you kind of demonstrate that you're passionate about the industry that you can care about the the people in their facility many of these homeowners have been doing this for a long time they absolutely love their residents they've they've built very strong relationships with their residents with the families of the residents and they're going to be really hesitant to
00:02:20
sell to somebody who isn't passionate about caring for them it's something that as you get into this industry you're gonna you're gonna find like everybody has so much love and care for the people that they're serving and and that's what really drives the industry and it's something that you're going to be getting into hopefully that's why you want to get into assisted living and why you want to do that make sure you're kind of sharing that with people the other thing is you want to kind of
00:02:44
share any experiences you have for caring for others and why it's important to you those types of stories are just they make a huge difference as you're developing a relationship with that seller you also want to find a good personal connection with the seller so that could be things that you're connecting with them on a personal level uh you know it could be anything could be hobbies could be vacation spots caring for your loved ones places that you've lived or visited those those are
00:03:12
the types of ways that you can develop those relationships it's really going to be helpful in in just having good conversations and make it a lot easier to talk to them and ask them difficult questions you might have difficult resonance that you're going to be coming into your new facility when you take over ownership there's going to be issues that you might have with billing with medicaid or the licensing process or something that i have found to be extremely useful is is getting the policies and procedures
00:03:42
that exist from from a previous owner especially if this is your first facility if they're willing to give that to you then that saves you so much time and you don't have to write this huge document on your own so that's going to be something that is going to be key and developing that relationship building that personal connection is really going to help you in being able to acquire some of those things that are going to be really useful for you and then the last tip that i have for helping you develop that
00:04:10
relationship with the seller is to genuinely communicate with them so we talked about with the lender and with a broker you want to over communicate and with a seller you want to genuinely communicate with them and just talk to them it's really important that you're doing that just communication really is is key you want to ask questions about their residence you want to ask questions about the facility and you know different things about the facility just i mean it's a home it's somewhere that
00:04:42
they've probably been they've either lived there at some point um or they've been there every day for the past several years and and they they love that home and so you want to ask questions about it and just get to know it you want to ask questions about their staff not only they want to come and work for you but just like personal personal things just really just have a good relationship with that person it's not always going to be easy to develop a relationship with those people
00:05:10
i've worked with sellers that are really quite difficult in the past but it's still going to be extremely important that you have those conversations that you really start developing that relationship with them because you never know when you're going to need their help in the future it could be help with policies and procedures like i talked about it could be licensing it could be billing medicaid or interacting like setting up a billing process to collect money from your residence
00:05:37
it could be a toilet leak in the house that um has been there for several years and you didn't catch it while you're doing your your tours and the home inspector didn't the home inspector didn't see it those those types of things so you just never know when you're gonna need to to reach out to to the seller it could be two or three years down the road and you just had something that you have to reach out to them about developing that relationship is is going to go a long way
00:06:04
towards having a long-term relationship with them to help you kind of further be successful as as an owner and operator of your own assisted living facility so to recap today the biggest ways that you can make yourself attractive to a seller are to share your passion for the industry next is to find a personal connection build a personal relationship with that person and then the third is to genuinely communicate with them and really get to know them and the residents and the staff and just everything about them just be genuine in
00:06:36
your communication it's going to go a long way as you're going through that next time we're going to be talking about why it's important to make yourself an attractive buyer to a lender and to a seller we've been talking about how to make yourself an attractive buyer to lenders and sellers next time we're going to get into the why it's important to make yourself an attractive buyer that's it for today make sure you like comment down below if this was helpful i'd love to get more tips from you on on
00:07:03
how you can be a good buyer for a lender or even for a seller i'd love to hear your tips i think everybody in in in the community would love to hear it as well make sure you're following me on my other social media platforms and then make sure you visit assistedlivinginvesting.net there's gonna be free resources over there i'm gonna be doing the mailing list put together for future content [Music] grateful that you're able to be on the channel today i hope this was useful make sure you like the video give me a
00:07:32
big thumbs up and we'll see you next time thanks for watching and have a good one we'll see ya you
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