How to Launch Your Assisted Living Business in 5 Simple Steps
Jun 11, 2025
Ready to start your residential assisted living business but don’t know where to begin? You're not alone. The truth is, most people make this harder than it needs to be. Let’s walk through the 5 simple (but essential) steps to launch your assisted living business—with clarity, confidence, and a proven roadmap.
Check out this video, too;
β Why This Matters
You’ve probably been thinking about starting a care home for a while. Maybe you're a nurse, a real estate investor, or someone who wants to build wealth while helping others.
But this business has a lot of moving parts. If you skip steps or do them out of order, it can cost you time, money, and momentum.
So here’s a clear breakdown of the exact 5 steps you need to follow.
π Step 1: Build a Business Plan
Your business plan is your foundation. Don’t skip this.
Here’s what goes into it:
β What kind of care will you provide?
β How many residents will you serve?
β What’s your budget?
β How much staffing do you need?
β Who's your ideal resident?
A good business plan answers these questions before you buy a property or apply for funding. Most people think they’ll figure it out later—but that’s where they go wrong.
Free Tool → Download our Business Plan Checklist to get started the right way.
π Step 2: Find the Right Property
Next up: location, location, location.
Here’s what to look for:
π Is it zoned for assisted living?
ποΈ Can it be converted easily for resident care?
π§π Will the fire department approve it?
π¨ Does it meet local health codes?
Some people start looking at houses on Zillow or Google, but they don’t know what makes a property actually viable for this business.
π΅ Step 3: Get the Funding
You’ve got the plan. You’ve got the property. Now you need the money.
Funding options include:
πΈ SBA loans (the most common route)
π¦ Conventional loans
π₯ Partnerships
π§Ύ Grants (they're really hard to find, but it's an option)
You don’t have to go the SBA route—but it’s a solid, scalable option, and it’s what I teach because I've used it myself. The key is to get clarity on your funding plan early. Without it, the deal could fall apart.
If you're stuck here, don’t worry—this is one of the biggest areas I help people with in the Success System.
π Step 4: Obtain Your Facility License
This step freaks people out—but it doesn’t have to.
You’ll need:
π§Ύ Application forms
π Policies & procedures
π§― Fire inspection approvals
ποΈ Zoning clearance
You don’t have to do this all at once. Most of this happens while you're working on other pieces. The key is to keep the momentum going and know what to expect.
Pro Tip: Your policies and procedures will take the longest, so get started on those early.
This is the stage where most people get overwhelmed and stuck. That’s why we walk you through it in the Success System—so you don’t waste time trying to piece it all together on your own.
π Step 5: Run the Business
You’ve got the plan, the property, the funds, and the license. Time to operate.
Here’s what to focus on:
π₯ Hiring the right administrator and staff
π° Managing your finances (payroll, food, bills)
π Setting KPIs (key performance indicators)
π Keeping proper records and staying compliant
This is where the real work begins—but also where the real freedom happens. You’re creating jobs, serving residents, and building a business that matters.
And if you're thinking, “I’ve been a nurse for 10+ years, I know how to care for people,” that’s amazing. But don’t forget: you’re running a business now. It takes both care and cash flow to keep your doors open.
Next Steps: Take Action Today!
π Want to launch your assisted living business in the next 12 months?
β
Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start planning.
β
Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
β
Step 3: Follow this guide, take action, and bring your vision to life!
Got questions? Drop them in the comments below! β¬οΈ
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:03
hey friend it is Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living investing excited to have you here with me on the live today uh we're doing this at a slightly different time we got super busy day today um so excited to have you here in our conversation today uh for our live we are going to be talking about how to start an assisted living business how to get up that business up and running and move forward with it uh to help you launch and and be ready to go so really excited to chat with you about uh this
00:00:33
and some really exciting things I have that are coming out um tomorrow actually um on the on the Facebook group and also through email so make sure you stay tuned to those those different things uh before we get started I want to remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net we will have a ticker going along the bottom where you can get your free business planning checklist um so Assistant Living investing. netb checklist will get access to that and uh we'll have also
00:01:03
that up here for you will have that links down below and everything else there so I have a bunch of stuff popping up um the the software I use is uh trying to get me to upgrade and pay for a bunch of stuff so uh we're going to be talking about how to start an assisted living business today uh I wanted to also give you some context as to who I am so if you're new to the channel uh make sure you type in newbie down below so that um I kind of get a feel for who's here and and what you need help
00:01:33
with um comment type your comments in uh your questions we'll have time for some Q&A here at the end of the call as well and can answer a few questions for you um before my next meeting and uh if you have been doing this for a while and you are just likeing to add something else or uh get back to the community type in operator down below so my name is Brandon Guston I own and operate two assisted living facilities and I do that out of state I live in Utah my facility are in Colorado and in Idaho so have
00:02:03
experience operating those remotely have done it since 2020 so I'm coming up on four years here uh in the next few months and uh I have a masters in healthcare administration as well so I've worked in the healthcare industry for over a decade have a lot of experience kind of working through that process and and helping people and um through the process of acquiring my two facilities have also secured over 1 and A5 million in SBA funding so know that process know how to acquire the businesses and and how to go through
00:02:31
that process and a lot of what I teach and coach and and um share with you on the channel and through um my coaching is how to help you get to that point so get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net you can get access to the free underwriting calculator there or go to the the business plan checklist link down below and get access to that free resource on YouTube have links to all of the free resources as well so make sure you grab those whatever is is um of most interest to you now let's get started
00:03:00
the as I mentioned I've got something really exciting coming up uh so stay tuned to the Facebook group and keep an eye on uh your email inbox for some exciting news uh that's going to be coming out um starting tomorrow actually um you can also set up uh a call with me at assisted living investing. netrat and um we can have a chat uh it's a free call and we can get into that um but some really exciting news that something I've been working on for a while now and excited to get out to you
00:03:30
so make sure you get over there and um sign up if you're interested in learning a little bit more now let's get into um the the topic for today how to start that Assisted Living business really there's going to be five things that we're going to be talking about here that are as as I was creating this it it caused me to reflect a little bit on my background how I got started and the sequence that I went through to to launch my Assisted Living business and um for those of you who have looked at
00:04:00
at my accelerator course um you'll notice that I I talked about a few different things but um as I was reflecting on it was a little bit more jumbled than I'd like it to be and and I realized there's actually a real path to the best way to do this rather than Pac mailing it together and so that's the path that I want to show you today um as we get into this and and why you should be following this path to help you get started and a lot of this is is what I coach as well so uh just kind of a
00:04:29
preview for for that um but I wanted to get this out to you because I think it's going to help you along your journey even if you just want to watch the the free stuff that I've got here on on YouTube on the Facebook group so the first thing is creating a business plan creating a business plan is such an important part this is why we have the business planning guide on the website that's assisted living investing. netb there will be links down below for that uh a very cheap way for you to get in
00:04:55
and start uh your your business plan process and getting uh getting that done but I wanted to give some clarity as to why you need to do it and it is to clarify for yourself what you are trying to do with your business um when you write these things down it gives you so much Clarity to move things forward and and to push things along and uh just to understand get things out of your head and put it down on paper and when you look at it from that perspective you can say uh you know that that part was
00:05:25
probably a bad idea or what if I tweaked it a little bit here that makes it quite a bit better and building that that business plan is really going to give you the clarity that you need to get there the business plan checklist you can get for free um is going to help you out with that um the the business planning guide is a great resource to really help you move there but creating this business plan understanding the underw writing understanding where you want to be putting things um doing your
00:05:50
market research all of those things are are really key at this point in the process because once you do that everything else becomes smooth everything else makes so much more sense and you're able to to move things along on top of that once you have that plan it makes it so much easier for you to have a conversation with a lender or a partner or an investor because you know exactly what you are trying to do and you're able to to move that forward and and articulate it and they can see what
00:06:19
it is and that gives them a level of confidence in you and who you are as an investor and who you will be as an operator because you've taken the time to put this on onto paper so this is why business plan creating that business plan it's it is really an important part of what you do you cannot skip this this piece and you want to be successful and I highly suggest that you do this first because it's going to just clarify everything for you and help you move forward this is a difference for me
00:06:46
between the first facility that I bought where I didn't do this and the second facility where I took some time and figured out where I wanted things to go and spent a little more time on the underwriting and understood that process a little bit more and created a business plan that that really aligned with what I wanted to do um it made the second acquisition go much more smoothly and um has put us in a better position with the way that one's operating so learn from my mistake and make sure you take some
00:07:13
time to put this business plan together correctly now let's get over to the second one this is finding a property number two you got to find that property you have to look and and find the opportunity that's going to work best for you this could be an existing facility that you're purchasing it could be converting a home that you own or you're going to buy a home and do the conversion on it or it could be finding a home that you can rent or lease from somebody else and operate inside of
00:07:42
their home all of these options are on the table for you and as you're building out that business plan it's going to give you the clarity for which of these options you want to go for and then as you build that criteria you're now able to work with a broker um or or somebody else it's going to help you identify where these properties are and then you can start reaching out to um to the sellers and finding those opportunities doing that's going to really help you just kind of push things
00:08:11
along find the right property that's that's good for you and once you've done the underwriting once or twice in the business planning phase um it then becomes so much easier for you to quickly analyze a deal using the quick and easy tab on the calculator that I give you on the website Assisted Living investing. net or um do a deeper dive because now you have the financials and you're able to kind of get a feel for what those financials look like and how it's going to be successful for you u
00:08:37
based off of what you're seeing from how the facility has operated in the past or what you're projecting it to be in the future this is a part that is going to make or break your deal um as you get into this world you have to realize you're as much as you want to help people and serve people and and provide this service with Assisted Living it's still a business and you still have to generate enough income for you to uh be able to operate and continue to serve those people and so you want to have
00:09:05
this all solidly built and finding the right property at the right price is going to be key to doing that let's get into number three we are talking about getting funding as I talk to you um in our in our strategy sessions a lot of what I hear and what I hear when I'm talking to you on Facebook on the chat is funding is a problem for a lot of you and some of it is you don't have the funds available and I totally get that like I totally understand it uh in that case you might need to look for a
00:09:34
partner um or find other investors or things to to bring along with you but for those of you that have the the you know the nest egg set aside to to move this forward there's also confusion as to what funding option is best for me and how do I go about doing it and that's why I always tell people that I've secured over one and a half million in SBA funding I know that process very well uh I've actually closed on three SBA funded deals two with the assisted living and one with another business
00:10:02
that um failed but I was able to secure the funding up front and a lot of what I'm teaching you to this point is is what you need to have in place so that you can get the funding having that business plan and finding the property two key pieces that you need to have before you go to a lender and say I need x amount of money a lot of lenders in in this day and age and for this type of an opportunity they're not going to pre-approve you for a certain amount of of money for it you might be able to get
00:10:34
somebody to secure you know a line of credit an unsecured line of credit or something like that that's not going to be enough to buy the home it's going to be maybe enough for down payment it's two separate things um that you need to be looking at the funding we're talking about here is the purchase of of a home um and that's going to be something like an SBA loan or could be looking at local banks or credit unions for their small business loans or um per perhaps it's something that's more along the lines of
00:11:01
an um economic loan um that they're trying to build up the the local community you could also be looking at private money or um Partnerships or other investors or there's so many different ways for you to to get the money get the funding that you need to purchase your your home it doesn't just have to be SBA it's just the route that I know and I understand and that I that I teach people a lot of because I have experience with it but there's so many different ways for you to obtain the
00:11:30
funding that you need it's just helping you get the clarity on how you're going to get that funding um because without it you're not going to be able to purchase that home um that that's going to help you achieve that those goals that you have so that's number three is getting the funding number four is obtaining the facility license so this piece is something that a lot of people get confused and and scared about and it's because you are dealing with a lot of different people there's zoning U
00:11:59
that you got to talk to there's different approvals you got to get um there's an application there's your policies and procedures that you have to build all of those four things you have to put them together and it kind of starts at the very beginning and it and it goes all the way to when you close on your deal and you're going to have to have all of that information together you're working on it um concurrently as you go through the process and there's quite a bit that goes to it in reality
00:12:25
it's just kind of having conversations with people and a few different applications and and and things like that it's not all that difficult to get done but it can be timeconsuming it can be confusing a lot of people have questions they get the application that you know the paper application that says you need to check these boxes and this is the population you want to serve and and here's this information on your business you get caught up in in all of those things and it it's okay um that
00:12:53
you do what uh you need to realize is you can figure this stuff out it's it's not going to be that difficult um but a lot of what I offer and my coaching is helping you get through that process um helping you understand how to build those policies and procedures and uh why they are key that's probably going to be your biggest um leadtime thing at this phase is building out those policies and procedures so you want to get a jump on those and figure out how you're going to do it you need to get zoning zoning um
00:13:20
make sure that's in place and then any other approvals from the fire department or other places those all have to fall into place as well so there's quite a bit here that goes into this pH pH but um and this is where a lot of people get overwhelmed honestly as they get into this but it it's something that you can figure out you can move past it and and continue making progress there so that is number four is obtaining the facility license and number five is actually running the business so once you have um
00:13:48
you built that business plan and and you're confident in it now you need to actually put that business plan into practice and and start running with it um but you have built that business plan you you have found the property you've gotten the funding and you have obtained the license and now you are ready to operate you're ready to go now what I mean you got to hire the right people whether you're the administrator or not um if you're not going to be the administrator how to hire that
00:14:14
administrator if you are going to be the administrator how are you going to find and hire the rest of your staff you need to get an understanding of what it looks like from a financial standpoint now you're running a business so you got to keep the books and understand um some of the the things that go into that you know you got to pay bills you got to buy food um all of those things um are going to go into running this business you're also going to um want to you know just kind of put everything together have
00:14:40
kpis um key performance indicators to let you know at a glance how how things are performing uh there there's just so many things that go into running this business that um as you're going through the process of acquiring it you don't realize you don't think about because you want it you want to have this business so bad and and when it finally hits you and you get the business you're like oh crap now I own a business what do I need to do and and you've got to figure that out and that's a lot of the
00:15:08
next step of of what I do with my coaching is helping you um understand how to run that business so that you don't feel overwhelmed and you can do that successfully I know a lot of you um are not concerned with that because you've been a nurse and and you love caring for people and I I think it's great I really do um something that that you're going to realize once you get this thing up and running is it is a business and you can't just care for the people you've got to care you've got to
00:15:34
handle all of the other things so unless you're hiring that out to somebody to manage the business for you you're going to need to do that and it's just an extra piece there that that's going to help you be successful and and be able to keep your doors open so you can serve your resident provide opportunities for your staff to provide for their families there's just so much that goes into this so that's number five is running that business now any questions um I know we've had a few people coming in and out
00:16:02
of the live and I think that's probably just the timing of this um people clicking in and then clicking watch later but uh if you're live and have any questions make sure you ask those uh in the meantime make sure you like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we go live we do the live sessions on Tuesdays and we are putting out other long form video content on Thursdays on the Facebook group we have some extra stuff on there as well so make sure you're getting out to each of these
00:16:29
platforms um interacting with me asking me questions um be active in the Facebook group ask you know questions and get feedback from me and from others in the community it's growing like crazy um and and so excited to help you out there same with YouTube channel really happy with um I love the interaction I love when people ask questions and I can help you out and and love the kind words as well so thank you so much for for all of that um and yeah I just I love being here if you have any questions even
00:16:58
after the fact make sure you put those down below and I will do my best to answer them or if it's a a really good topic I will create a separate live video on that topic to to help you out but uh just wanted to make sure you had a good understanding of exactly what you needed to do to launch your Assisted Living business remember there's five pieces in here number one is to build that business plan number two is to find the property three is to get the funding four is to obtain the license and five
00:17:24
is to actually run that business if you do all those things do it in sequence you're going to be successful does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we are here to help you through the process to launch your assistant buing business and help you obtain time and Financial Freedom want thank you again for watching remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. netb checklist for the free underwriting or for the free uh
00:17:50
business plan checklist get over to the website get the free underwriting calculator and make sure you uh get the business planning guide if that's going to be of interest to you to help you along the way uh that's Assisted Living investing. netb PG and uh if you get that it gives you a ton of information and keep an eye on your email inbox and in the Facebook group for some exciting news coming out tomorrow and uh we will talk to you next week thanks for watching and have a great day
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