How to Find the Perfect Home for Residential Assisted Living
Apr 28, 2025
Finding the right home for your assisted living business is a critical step—but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Whether you’re converting a house, buying an existing facility, or building from scratch, the right property can set you up for long-term success.
This guide breaks down everything you need to know about choosing the best home for assisted living. From size and layout to licensing and fire safety, we’ll cover it all.
Let’s dive in! π
Check out this video, too;
Why Choosing the Right Home Matters
Your property impacts everything—resident experience, profitability, and even licensing approval. Before searching for a home, ask yourself:
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How many residents do I want to serve?
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What’s my budget for buying or leasing a property?
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Do I understand my state’s licensing and safety requirements?
The goal is to find a home that meets your business needs while staying compliant with state regulations. If you need guidance, check out The Assisted Living Accelerator for a step-by-step process for launching your facility.
Step 1: Understand the Ideal Home Size & Layout
The "perfect" home looks different for everyone, but here are some general guidelines to follow:
π‘ Number of Beds – Aim for at least 10-12 beds for a profitable operation. More beds = better cash flow.
π Bedroom Size Requirements – Most states require 100 sq. ft. for private rooms and 80 sq. ft. per resident in shared rooms.
π½οΈ Common Areas – You’ll need space for a kitchen, dining, and living areas. Some states also require a dedicated visiting space.
π Stairs vs. Single Level – Some states don’t allow stairs, while others require that all residents can navigate them.
π‘ Pro Tip: Before you purchase, check your state’s assisted living licensing requirements to avoid costly surprises!
Step 2: Make Sure the Property is Profitable
Even if a home looks perfect, the numbers need to work. Here’s how to evaluate financial viability:
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Purchase or Lease Costs – Can you afford the mortgage or rent while ramping up occupancy?
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Renovation Expenses – Will you need to remodel to meet state regulations?
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Expected Revenue – How much will you charge per resident, and does it cover costs?
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Profit Margins – More residents typically mean better profitability. A 16-bed home often outperforms a 6-bed home in cash flow.
π‘ Use our free Underwriting Calculator to analyze financial feasibility before making an offer!
Step 3: Check Fire Safety & Licensing Requirements
Each state has specific requirements for assisted living homes. Here are some key areas to check:
π₯ Fire Suppression – Some states require sprinkler systems, while others don’t.
π¦ Storage Space – You may need locked storage for medical supplies and food.
ποΈ Resident Safety – Wide hallways, proper lighting, and ADA compliance may be required.
π Licensing Approval – A home that doesn’t meet state codes could lead to delays or denied license applications.
π‘ Pro Tip: Contact your state's licensing department and the local fire marshal before committing to a property!
Step 4: Find the Best Location for Demand & Growth
Location is just as important as the home itself. Here’s what to research:
π Market Demand – Are there enough seniors in need of care in your area?
βοΈ Competition – Are there already too many facilities, or is there room for growth?
ποΈ Zoning & Regulations – Ensure assisted living is allowed in the neighborhood before purchasing.
π‘ The Assisted Living Launchpad includes a full market research guide to help you find the best location!
Step 5: Take Action & Get Expert Guidance
Choosing the right home is a huge step, but you don’t have to do it alone! Here’s how to move forward:
π Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to structure your facility setup.
π Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
π Step 3: Use the Underwriting Calculator to analyze properties before making a decision.
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:00
building business in the next 12 months excited to have you here with me um today for our live session uh today we're going to be talking about finding the perfect home for a residential Assisted Living so I'm going to go ahead and add this to the scene um and for those of you uh who need some help getting things started make sure you go and grab the business plan checklist um we've got a ticker going across the bottom so you can remember what that website is but Assisted Living investing. netb checklist you can go and
00:00:29
grab that for those of you who are new uh and watching me for the first time welcome uh thanks for being here excited to have you make sure you type in newbie down below so I can see who's here um and and get a feel for uh the new people that are that are watching and and type in any questions that you have we're going to have time for some Q&A here at the end so uh make sure that you uh are are typing in those questions as um as we go along uh so I can hit those questions we'll have some time I do have
00:00:58
a time constraint here at the top of the hour so I will need to to finish by the top of the hour but um still ask your questions so I can hit on those and again I grab that free resource the business plan checklist at Assisted Living investing. net BP checklist um all right so with that out of the way I want to kind of introduce myself as well because I know some of you are are new here and um may not know who I am so my name is Brandon um I uh own two assisted living facilities uh I I operate them out of state so I live in
00:01:32
Utah um and one of my facilities is in Colorado the other facility is in Idaho and I operate those remotely have been doing this since 2020 and um let's see I've gotta flip my screen so I can see my stuff I've secured over one and a half million in SBA funding as well through the process of going through this and I also have a masters in healthcare administration have worked in the healthcare industry for over a decade and have a lot of experience uh just kind of working through things so um that's that's me
00:02:03
and a nutshell and uh what I'm what I'm here to do is is help you launch your Assisted Living business so um now let's get into the topic today again we're talking about um you know how to find that that home for ra for a residential assisted living home uh it can be hard it can be hard to find the exact thing and so we're kind of go get into that uh here in in today's video um so the first question is is there a perfect home for this and I got to say each opportunity is unique and what I want you to to make
00:02:36
sure that you do and and I teach this to to everybody um is to build your foundation to make sure that it works for you we're actually doing a live Workshop here in a couple of weeks uh if you go to Assisted Living investing. netb FB for business Foundation Basics you can join in that live if you're watching this later um we'll have the the link so you can still purchase the the replay of that Workshop um after the fact but if you get in on this here in the next couple of weeks you'll be able
00:03:06
to be there live ask questions and things like that um but the reason why we're doing that Workshop is building that Foundation is one of the most important things you can do uh building a business plan it's going to allow you to get some clarity for yourself on what you're trying to build what population you want to serve where you want to be doing the market research figuring out what that uh looks like and and if you've got the perfect mark market for assisted living or not uh it's also
00:03:33
going to allow you to do underwriting and make sure that that it works for you um just having a three-bedroom home is is great but when you start looking at the numbers and things like that because you're running a business you got to pay people you got to feed your residents like there's a lot of financials that that go into this a lot of expenses that goes into running this business and having a three-bedroom home may not work for you it might I don't I don't want to tell you that it won't but you have to
00:04:01
know that you have to run the numbers you have to figure it out so is there a perfect home I always like to say the more the better I personally wouldn't look at anything that's less than 10 beds I prefer 12 or more um my facilities are 16 beds in each of them however I teach people in my Mastermind program you can apply to that at ali mastermind.com uh simple application free application process uh fill it out if you're good fit if I feel like I can help help you out then I'll send you all
00:04:31
the program details you can decide if it's a good bit for you or not but I have people inside the Mastermind program that are looking at smaller six bed facilities and they'll run the numbers and it looks good and so it's really kind of a risk tolerance um where do you feel comfortable with so really I don't think there's a perfect home for it um my home in Idaho is as perfect a home as I could think of actually um it is uh 3500 square feet um there's 11 bedrooms 11 or 12 bathrooms um living
00:05:05
space dining room like it is laid out specifically for assisted living it's probably as perfect an opportunity as as you could find um but not everybody can find that was actually purpose built to be Assisted Living so uh there's there's those opportunities out there but each opportunity should be taken by itself and valuated to see if it's a good opportunity or not that's what I would encourage you to do so how many square feet do you need this is another question I see um and all of this is
00:05:34
actually coming from somebody that had a question inside of the inside of YouTube in a comment and so I'm answering all of that um so the question was how many square feet do you need and really the the square footage of the home is not that important um there's no like requirement hey if you want to have X amount of residents you have to have a 2 200 square feet foot um home and if you want y amount then you got to have 4,000 um there's no guidance there the guidance actually comes down to bedrooms
00:06:03
um and the sizes of bedrooms so in Most states and you want to check this out in your state but in most States 100 square feet is what is required for a single room so every uh if you are wanting to have non-shared rooms each room needs to be at least 100 square feet so I think a 10 x10 room that's that's what's required if you're doing a shared room then there needs to be 80 square feet per resident in that shared room so you're thinking 100 60 squ ft room um for for two residents um there there
00:06:34
might be rules around that if you have more than two I don't know that I would ever do more than two um that seems like a bit much to me but there might be circumstances there and if you have a huge room a 240 square foot room technically you could probably do that but you want to check with the state on each of these check with the state with your state on the specific requirements for your room sizes but there is know hard and fast rule that says a house has to be a certain amount of square feet it
00:07:05
is much more how many square feet are in a room and then the other spaces within the house um kitchen is typically you typically have to have a kitchen and have a dining space um a lot of states will also require some kind of a living um space just like a community type of an area so those are the types of things that you want to be looking at what types of rooms are required and and then how many square feet does a bedroom need those are the those are the things that you need to be looking at not the size
00:07:37
of the home that that's honestly not as important as these other things how many rooms do you need um this is a good question and and we go back to that what I was saying earlier as to uh you know what's the perfect home and I would say smaller homes are a lot more difficult to be profitable um in The Mastermind I was talking with somebody about this yesterday just last night um and he has a home it's a three-bedroom home and um looking at turning it into a small Assisted Living uh but they would work
00:08:10
in it uh he and his wife would be the ones that are working in it and I have a a video on my Channel That's can a two or three bedroom home really be profitable and the conclusion that we came to in that video and I encourage you to go watch it is um if you work in the home you can make it work you're not there's not a lot of Prof in it but you can make it work you can get it to cash flow a little bit and and have it make sense uh but in most cases larger homes are better from a financial standpoint
00:08:42
uh you can in Most states um I see a lot of the 16 that is the kind of maximum amount that you can get there but I know there's some that get up to 20 so you want to look and I think some only go to 12 so you want to look at what your state allows for a residential assisted living home um and if you go if you want to do something else then you might be classified as uh your license type might be something that's slightly different and fall into that big box area but you want to check this out but the more beds
00:09:12
that you have available in your home the um more income that you're going to get the smaller the home the tighter the margins are this is why I talked to you about those those foundations the business foundation and getting that in place it's so important for you to do that because if you don't then like you might be losing money so you have to be really careful with this again if you need some help with the business foundations go check out the business foundations Basics course uh
00:09:43
we'll be doing the live Workshop here in a couple of weeks and after the fact you can still buy the the replay of that um but that's Assisted Living investing. netb FB for business Foundation Basics um so that's something I want you to to look at there's no requirement that says you have to have at least amount of bedrooms but from a financial standpoint the more rooms that you have in a home the more residence you can have and the more you're going to cash flow so that's
00:10:08
something I want you to be aware of other rooms um so apart from the bedrooms and this is what we're were just talking about here just a second ago is the the rooms that are going to be required more than likely are a kitchen there will absolutely be a requirement for a kitchen um that is going to be in every single state it needs to be um has to pass inspections has to be up to code and things like that so kitchen is number one um you're going to need a dining space a space where residents can eat and if you've
00:10:38
got 16 residents in a home you've got to have a decently sized space for those residents to to eat um so you can do that uh next is a living space so this is just like lounging um you know TV um area where people can sit you can play games those types of things um living space is something you'll need and then some type of a visiting era area um During the covid period there were requirements that were put into place I don't think I've I think they may have gone away but you had to have a separate
00:11:10
room for specifically for visiting um that had to have a certain amount of square feed in it uh type of a thing and so for some facilities that meant that you had to um you know one of your bedrooms you couldn't use because it had to for for new residents because it had to be your designated visiting area so that's something that you want to be aware of um some states may have kept that type of a rule um where I'm at with my facilities they did not um but that's something you need to look at the best
00:11:39
place for you to go to figure all of this out is to do an internet search for something like Assisted Living licensing um in my state and then look through the through some of those requirements there will be links and things like that that you can figure out for yourself um all of the answers to all of these questions um is a really good place for you to to start now let's talk about stairs um for those of you that watched we did a tour of my facility in Colorado um and if you haven't seen that then
00:12:08
make sure you just go check that out it's the the tour the full tour of my facility where we had the million-dollar Grant um and if you watch that video you know I have a ton of stairs in that house so it's four stories tall it's stair like what we're looking at here on on those stairs it kind of makes me a little bit dizzy but that's kind of what the stairs are in that house they're all over the place there's a lot of them um you have to check with your state some states do not allow stairs like period
00:12:36
that's it other states do but uh there will be certain limitations on there and one of them is if you have stairs you have to have residents that can handle those stairs if not then you cannot meet their needs and they cannot be in your house anymore so that means that if you have a resident that can't do stairs you're not meeting their needs you have to discharge them and then you have a vacancy so stairs are possible it is check with your state but it is possible to have stairs in an assisted living facility I
00:13:08
have them in mind um but it does limit you in the type of Resident that can come in we have had to turn residents away or discharge residents because they cannot handle stairs and that's just reality of what we deal with inside of that house in in our Colorado home so that's something you want to be aware of but you can figure that out as you're doing your intake process and your assessment of residents if they'd be able to handle stairs or not other requirements um these were a
00:13:38
few questions that came up ceiling height I'm not aware of any ceiling height uh type of requirements inside of an assisted living a state may have that I would guess that it needs to be at least a standard height so an8 foot ceiling but always check um never assume always double check ceiling height would be something that you would ask the fire department um than likely uh fire suppression system do you need it how invasive does it need to be I've had videos on the channel um that talk
00:14:06
specifically about fire suppression system so you need to figure out what that's going to look like for you storage do you need certain amounts of storage a pantry um medical supplies those types of things do you need it where's it going to go uh does it need to be locked you know those types of things need to understand exactly what that looks like for uh for you there will likely be some type of requirement for storage though uh closet space this is for your residents um my understanding and looking at a few
00:14:38
States and again I check your your state but closets like a specifically built closet inside of a bedroom is not required for assisted living you do however have to provide some kind of a clothing storage space so that could be a wardrobe or a dresser or something like that so you need to check with your states of rules but uh a closet like a built-in Closet in a bedroom is not necessarily required so that's something you want to look at closets um count do not count as four space for the bedroom
00:15:14
size so if you had a 10x10 room but you had this little 2x two section that was a closet um that 2 by two that 4ot section four four square foot section does not count towards the 100 square feet in a room so you would not meet that in the 10 by2 so you need to take out that 2 by two closet I know 2 by two closet is extremely tiny and not realistic but I just want to give you a visual um so you'd have to knock that wall out now you have a 10 by10 bedroom and then you could just put in a wardrobe or something like that to meet
00:15:49
the needs of of storage for for residents so that's something you want to do again check with your state um always always always don't just assume what I'm telling you is correct if you're doing this by yourself check with your state if you want some help and some guidance on that again you can apply to The Mastermind program Alim mastermind.com free application let's me see if I can help you if I can I will send you all the details and you can decide if it's a good fit for you or not
00:16:11
I love coaching people I love helping people I'd love to help you if you feel like it's a good fit for you and you need some of that guidance right now um all right Q&A time let's see I've got about 10 minutes before my meeting my next meeting so um for those of you that are here that are live make sure you're typing in those questions uh I do want to thank everybody who has been watching make sure you like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we go live
00:16:37
on Tuesdays um or put out content on Thursdays and so you get some of that information and and get notified when we put those things out there um make sure you're joining the Facebook group and uh you know ask asking questions there posting and and getting the help that you need in that group apply to The Mastermind Alim mastermind.com and uh check out the business foundations's basic Foundation BAS Basics course at Assisted Living investing. net BFB for help with with Basics and and building
00:17:05
out that business plan all that out of the way Rose oh let's see Nicole um you would love to get to 12 beds yes I 12 beds I think is great um and you have to remember as well um people when I say 12 beds I am not saying you need 12 bedrooms in a home not at all 12 beds could be a six-bedroom home um they just to be larger bedrooms or it could be an eight-bedroom home it just kind of depends but you do not have to have 12 bedrooms when you're doing a 12 bed home so I want you to to know that but yes
00:17:41
Nicole 12 beds I think is a really good number um I there's uh somebody that's in the group Brandon Schwab um I'll plug him you can go check him out um that this is what he does um is uh high-end private pay um homes that are more boutique style and their 12 beds uh Brandon has a great model and I love what he does um he and I have talked quite a bit about uh the work that he does and I think he's got a great model and it works really well for him so 12 beds I think is really good I the more
00:18:13
the better in my opinion is what I like to say um Rose so as as much information about licensed residential care for the seriously mental ill as possible my son takes his meds does not take drugs or alcohol or smoke not violent but he hallucinates um so I'm trying to see here your questions there so as much information about licensed uh residential I'm wondering Rose if you want some some more information about that population um for the seriously mental ill um so I don't know if your son is on Medicaid or
00:18:47
not but um that would be something that like my my house in in Colorado um that's what we deal with is that mental health population and a lot all but one of them are on Medicaid and so we're able to work with them through that that Medicaid waiver and and serve them and and help them out um and meet their needs they most of them I don't know of any at this point we've had people that have had have done drugs in the past but I don't think there's any in there right now at least that I'm aware of um not on
00:19:19
drugs not alcohol you know they'll smoke um which is which is fine they're not violent as long as they're on their meds um but it's part of what we do is med management and we we follow their care plan we work with their nurses with their um with the people that that are providing the care um with their nurse team with their um their case managers figure out what their care plan is and then we make sure we follow that care plan so that we are helping them out and meeting their needs um and and getting
00:19:49
them the things that they need so that they can remain stable um it is one of that is the hurdle that you run into when you're working with mental health um with the mental health population they are incredible um from a business standpoint they're great because they're younger they can stay in the home for 40 years you know they can come in in their mid 20s and stay there till they're 80 they can stay in the home for a really long time which is an incredible thing to do um and there's a lot of people
00:20:18
there's a stigma I think with mental health residents that you don't want to serve them when in reality they're just as good as Elderly Care residents they're they're great I love talking with them they're incredible people but the the issues that they deal with are Med management um and so you have to stick with those medications and you have to hit on them really hard um so that's something you have to do the licensing process and everything there is very similar though um in Most states
00:20:47
I'm not aware of other states there might be slight different slightly different things they may call it something slightly different in in a different state there might be different boxes you need to check but at its core the process for obtaining a license to serve a mental health population is going to be the same as an elderly care population so um you're not you're not really following different paths um even like Medicaid it's just the waivers that you want to serve is is kind of how that
00:21:14
works so hopefully that answers your question There Rose um feel free to uh jump in and and ask CL or give me some clarification if you need something uh Renee um when I calculated numbers for do you look at call so calculated number for a property do you look at comps of the property as well as the cash flow for beds I would assume that the bed cash flow is more important than the comps yeah I I think you're right Renee um you can look at comps I think it's it's beneficial to look at comps
00:21:43
because uh it lets you see what else is in the market so you can determine if if it's a good fit or not if it can handle certain Market rates um what you're going to probably find to be difficult is um getting the that comp information is going to be difficult a lot of owners are not um super excited to give that data is is the best way I could say it and so if you can find it that's good it gives you an idea and then you can kind of compare um rates that you're seeing on something you're purchasing against
00:22:16
something that um somebody else is doing and you can see you know oh there's a gap here like we could actually charge an extra $500,000 a month for this and and so it gives you a feel for what that would look like um but if not then looking specifically at the the cash flow of the the the space that you are are buying the bed rates and everything like that getting comfortable with what those numbers look like and understanding them and maybe some if there's any seasonality there uh whether it's from a
00:22:46
bed perspective or anything like that or why there are increases were these Medicaid rate increases were these private pay rate increases those types of things understanding what that looks like I think is going to be really beneficial for for you um and then it lets you see okay if nothing change we buy this facility nothing at all changes does it work or do we need to increase rates by x amount for it to to make more sense um that's that's kind of how I would handle those um I know you and I
00:23:16
have been emailing quite a bit so if you have any questions on that let me know um and I can give you some more specifics on it but um yeah that's that's how I would handle that is uh look at look at the opportunity in front of me and see what it looks like today and can that work for me or not and then if not what needs to change to make it work and then those changes that I need to do to implement to make it work is that reasonable or feasible can that be done or not those are kind of that's the
00:23:49
thought process I go through as as I work through all this okay um oh excuse me um okay so I am going to close us out because I've got my meeting coming up I want to thank those of you who have been watching though uh really appreciate it make sure you go and grab the business plan checklist Assisted Living investing. netb checklist uh just it's a checklist to help you build that business plan and help you really start making some progress and if you need more help um with that and and need some
00:24:22
extra guidance we're going to be doing a live Workshop here in a couple of weeks that's Assisted Living investing. netb FB for business Foundation Basics uh that will be something that will allow we will build that business plan together and you'll have the recording so you know exactly how to do that and it's a business plan that is specific to Assisted Living something that I've been able to use to secure the 1.5 million in SBA funding that I've done so I know that it works I know it hits on all the
00:24:47
things that lenders want to see so that's what that course is designed to do again that's Assisted Living investing. net BFB for business Foundation Basics thanks again for watching everybody does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know how to get started um at Assisted Living investing. net I'm here to help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months I want to thank you for watching and also remind you that it doesn't take a lot just a little bit
00:25:13
keep going step by step by step and I promise you if you do and you're consistent and persistent you're going to be successful thanks for watching and have a great day
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