Insider Hacks to Get Funding for Your Assisted Living Business
Oct 17, 2025
Starting an assisted living business is exciting—but let’s be real… funding can feel like the hardest part. You might be wondering:
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Where do I even start?
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Who will lend me money?
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How do I make lenders take me seriously?
Good news—you don’t need to figure it out alone. In this post, I’ll share insider hacks to help you secure financing for your assisted living business. These are simple, proven steps that beginners use every day to launch their first care home.
Check out this video, too:
Why Your Business Plan Matters π
“Your business plan is one of the most key things that you can do.”
Lenders want to see that you’ve thought this through. A business plan shows them you’re serious. It’s not just paperwork—it’s your roadmap.
Here’s what to include:
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Who you want to serve (your target population)
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The type of home and location you’re considering
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Operations and staffing plans
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Financial projections (income & expenses)
π Grab this FREE Business Plan Checklist to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Underwriting: Know Your Numbers π’
“Underwriting is absolutely key.”
Underwriting means breaking down the numbers to see if a deal actually works. If the numbers don’t add up—don’t force it. Walk away.
Here’s what you’ll look at:
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Income (what residents will pay)
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Expenses (wages, insurance, food, energy (utilities), debt service (mortgage/rent))
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Profit margins (what’s left over)
π Pro Tip: Use the FREE Underwriting Calculator to make this simple.
If a deal doesn’t make financial sense, that’s okay. Another one will.
Cast a Wide Net π£
“Cast a wide net.”
Don’t talk to just one bank and call it good. Different lenders have different appetites. Some will say "no". Others will compete for your deal.
Here are some options:
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SBA loans (Small Business Administration)
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Local banks
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Credit unions
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Private lenders
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Hard money lenders
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Friends & family
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Investors
The more doors you knock on, the better your odds.
Build Real Relationships π€
“Build relationships with lenders. Be super responsive.”
Financing isn’t only about numbers. It’s also about trust. Lenders want to see that you’re organized, prepared, and professional.
How to stand out:
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Respond quickly when they ask for documents
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Keep everything neat in a Google Drive “Lender Docs” folder
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Be consistent and show you’re serious
These small steps make a big impression.
Handle “No” Like a Pro πͺ
“You’re going to get no's.”
Here’s the truth: your first lender will probably say "no". That’s normal. But “no” doesn’t mean forever—it just means "not yet".
When you hear "no":
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Ask for feedback
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Improve your plan
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Try again with someone else
Each “no” brings you closer to a “yes.”
Action Steps: Your Funding Checklist β
Here’s what you can do today:
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Write a clear business plan
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Use the underwriting calculator to test profitability
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Walk away if a deal doesn’t make sense
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Make a list of 20+ lenders to contact
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Set up a Google Drive folder for documents
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Be fast and professional with lender requests
Take it step by step. “It doesn’t take a lot, just a little bit. Step by step.”
NEXT STEPS TO DO π
π Download the FREE Business Plan Checklist — it walks you through exactly what to include in your plan.
π Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Final Thoughts
Securing funding for your assisted living business may feel overwhelming, but you don’t need to do it alone. With a strong plan, smart underwriting, persistence, and real relationships—you can get the financing you need.
Remember: every "no" is just one step closer to your "yes". Keep moving forward.
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:00 - 00:00:50
Hey friend, I'm Brandon Gustafson. I help beginners like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12 months. In today's video, we're going to be getting into some insider hacks for getting financing for your assisted living business. So, if you need some help and some guidance with that, make sure you stick around for today's video. Hey friend, welcome back to Assisted Living Investing. Excited to have you here. Before we get into the topic for today, which is are some insider hacks
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for helping you obtain financing for your care home in your assisted living facility, I want to remind you to get over to assistedlivinginvesting.net. In the big blue box in the top right corner, you're going to see our free underwriting calculator. So, make sure you go and grab that. It's one of the key things that you need that we're going to talk about in today's video. So, make sure you stick around till the end so you can learn a little bit more about exactly how that's going to help
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you out as you're trying to obtain funding. Now, with that said, let's hop into it. some of those insider tips and tricks that you need, the insider hacks for obtaining financing for your care home, for your assisted living business. And this is really applicable to any type of business as well. But really, I I want to dive into this for assisted living and how it's going to help you out as you're trying to obtain funding. I know this is something that is difficult for a lot of you to figure out
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and I'm going to give you some of the things that I have found to be the most important things that you can do to launch your assisted living business and get the funding that you need so you can successfully launch. So number one, the first thing that you need to do is a business plan. And I talk about business plans all the time on this channel about building that foundation. Your business plan is one of the most key things that you can do when you are trying to launch your assisted living business and get
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funding. It's the first step you should be doing. You want to really design what you want out of this. What do you want out of your assisted living business? You want to create a mission statement for where you want this thing to go, who you're going to be serving, how you're going to help them out and move things along so that they can feel happy and safe inside of your home. Really important for you to do that. and building that. It's key part of your business plan. Inside of your business
00:02:05 - 00:02:48
plan, you're going to need to design or outline exactly which population you want to serve. Is it elderly? Is it disabled population? Is that mental health population? Who are you passionate about? Who do you want to serve? Age ranges. You want to design all of that. That's going to give you something in the business plan. A lot of this thing with the business plan as well. I just want to tell you, it's for the lender. Lenders, it's a requirement. They're going to need it. It's better
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for you to have this upfront so that you can just hand it off to them. and it creates a really good first impression. But secondarily, and maybe more importantly, it helps you get really clear in your mind exactly what this business is going to look like for you and how it's going to operate, which gives you a lot more clarity and confidence as you are moving forward and running your assisted living business. You want to outline as well where are you going to be located, where do you want this facility, what's that going to
00:02:51 - 00:03:44
look like for you as you're doing this. You know, which city, which state, which neighborhood do you want to be in? You want to be outlining a lot of those things and show that you've done the market research that is needed to help you launch your assisted living business. And the biggest section of your business plan is going to be how you're going to operate. How are you going to do this? How many staff are you going to have? Are you going to be 24/7 fully staffed? Are you going to have
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nursing staff on site? How are you going to handle different scenarios? You want to outline all of these things. These are questions that lenders are going to have. And so you need to have this in your business plan to say this is how we're going to make some progress and really successfully operate our business so that we have happy residents and happy families and happy staff and things are working the way that we want them to work so that we can successfully operate our business and and turn a
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profit with it. Another thing that I want you to be aware of and this is why I mentioned this at the top of the video. Go grab the underwriting calculator. Again, we will we'll link that down below for you. Go. the big blue box in the top right corner. Go to assistedl livinginvesting.net. Underwriting is absolutely key in what you're trying to do as you launch your assisted living business. Underwriting is going to help you understand the finances. It's going to help you understand how you're going to in get
00:04:08 - 00:04:55
income, what that income is going to look like, what that income potential is going to be based off of the type of population you're going to serve. It's also going to help you understand the expenses. What are those big expenses and and how do they work? If you're interested in the top five expenses, type in five down below and that will let me know that, hey, you need to know what those five big expenses are and we'll make sure that we get you some help as you're trying to figure that out
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as as you're trying to launch your assisted living business. The other thing you get to do with underwriting is see how you're going to be profitable. It's going to be your income minus your expenses. It's going to equal your net profit. And if you are profitable, then great. And if not, this is the time to figure out that you're not going to be profitable. So you can walk away from the deal or figure out, hey, is it because it needs more beds or do we need to raise rates? And can I do that? Is it
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realistic for me to do that? You know, sunshine, clouds, rainbows, all those things. Don't get too caught up in that. It's more important for you to be realistic with this. But this is a time for you to be doing that. This is a time for you to be figuring out, is this going to work for me or not? And with that said, I want to give you permission, you that's watching this, if a deal doesn't make financial sense. It is okay to walk away from it. You will find another deal. I promise you, you
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will. I know you find a deal and it is just like there's an assisted living facility. There's a care home out there and you found it and you want to move forward with it because you finally found one and you think it's going to be great and you look at the numbers and it's like I don't know these numbers. They're just like, "I could make it work if I was just like always 100% full or I could make it work if we could just raise rates by $1,000 per bed. I think we can do it. Let's do it." Don't Don't
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put yourself in that situation. Take the time. If it doesn't make sense, walk away. Find a different deal. I give you permission. It's totally fine for you to do that. It's probably the best advice I can give you. Do not put yourself in a bad situation that will make you lose money. I do not want you to do that. So, make sure that you are spending time underwriting and understanding exactly what those financials are going to look like and how it's going to impact you before you really start moving forward
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with running your assisted living business. Also, on top of that, super important for you, but lenders are going to look at this. They're going to see, hey, is this actually realistic? They will be a double check for you, but you have to do this for yourself. You have to hold yourself accountable. If you can figure out those finances, if it's not a good fit, just walk away. If a lender tells you, "Eh, I don't know that this is great," they'll probably tell you, "No." But if you get like seven, eight,
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10, 20 lenders that'll tell that are telling you your projections are not realistic, you should probably listen to them because as much as they like to do loans, they and they really do cuz that's how they make money. They they don't want to be in a spot where you can't make the payment, then they're going to get stuck with the real estate. They don't want to do that. I've been I've talked to enough lenders to know they don't want the real estate. It's their way of getting collateral, but
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it's not something that they're really interested in in having to deal with. So, they want to make sure that you're profitable. They want to work with you. They really, really do. They just have certain metrics that you need to hit for them. Another huge piece of advice that's going to help you find a lender that's going to work with you is casting a wide net. Do not just be like, "Oh, you know what? I heard that Live Oak is great for assisted living. And they are, by the way, they're a great bank to work
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with and they they work specifically with assisted living and care homes. So, it's a great one for you to work with. But on top of that, don't just go to them and be like, "Here's my deal. You guys should fund it." Cuz chances are they're going to tell you no. Just like statistically, they will probably tell you no. Cuz that's what happens. You have to cast a wide net. Go talk to all of the lenders that you can find online and then do a Google search. do an internet search for SBA lenders in my
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state and look at them and cold call or cold email these people and say, "Hey, I have this opportunity. It's an assisted living facility. XYZ, you know, you're you're giving them all a very highlevel overview of exactly what you're looking for. I wanted to see if this is something that you fund. Could we have a conversation?" Or if you don't fund it, who do you know that does? And that's how you're going to build this relationship. If you cast this huge wide
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net and and you are asking a bunch of different people, it's going to open up a lot more doors. And then statistically, if you were to reach out to 20 lenders and let's say just 10% of them said, "Yeah, let's move forward." That's only two that are going to move forward. And then only one of them is probably going to say yes. So you have to have this. The more lenders that you can reach out to, the better off you're going to be. And don't worry about them finding out that you're talking to
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another lender. Totally normal in this area. So, don't worry too much about that. Cast a wide net. Talk to a bunch of people and see what they say and get feedback from them and listen to the feedback. They're telling you the things that they like or don't like about the deal. You need to listen to the things that they don't like so you can implement that on the next opportunity or with the next lender that you're going to talk to because that's going to help out. And I guarantee you they're
00:09:16 - 00:10:05
going to say something like, "Yeah, your business plan is it's a little squishy here." Or, "Well, we need a business plan. Do you have that?" Or, "Your underwriting is just a little bit off. You're being a little bit too optimistic." Okay. They're going to give you that type of feedback. I promise you, they will. And so, you want to pay attention to that feedback and adjust those things accordingly so the next time you talk to a lender, it's more realistic or it's more complete or you
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actually have the business plan cuz they will ask for those things. So, you want to make sure you're hitting on it. Take that feedback, listen to it, and implement it. That's what's going to allow you to be successful as you're trying to get the financing that you need as you launch your assisted living business. And I promise you as well, you're going to get told no all the time. I have been told no by dozens of lenders. It happens all the time. So, don't get discouraged. Just it's a part
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of the process. And no really means not yet. The more that you're casting that wide net, the more you're going to get told no. Um, but take that feedback, implement it, and keep moving forward. Keep finding opportunities and people to talk to and build relationships there. This is all about building relationships. Just because they said no to that facility, that specific opportunity, doesn't mean that they don't like you. It just means that one didn't work for them. But if you build
00:10:30 - 00:11:24
this good relationship and leave a good taste in their mouth when you stop talking to them, they're going to be a lot more excited and interested in talking to you about the next opportunity. One of my goals, well, number one is to get, yes, get get the funding, but my secondary goal is to make the lender feel so bad that they have to tell me that they can't work with me because somebody in their underwriting department said that it didn't work for them. I want my point of contact with the bank to just like feel
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miserable that they had to tell me no. That that's my goal cuz I want to be so good and so prepared when I talk to them that it just blows their socks off. Okay? So, that's what I encourage you to do as well. In addition to that, you got to talk to a bunch of different types of lenders. You got to be working with SBA. You got to be working with local banks. You got to be talking to credit unions. You got to be working with private lenders and hard money lenders and family and friends. You want to not just
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cast this whole big net that is out to just the SBA lenders. You want to throw it out to everybody and see what they say. And that's how you're going to learn a little bit of what what they need and how you're going to get increase your chances of getting a yes and getting somebody to give you the funding that you need so you can reach your goals and create that time of financial freedom that you're trying to create here inside of assisted living. And as you are working with lenders,
00:11:46 - 00:12:37
I've mentioned this a couple times already, but the most important thing that you can do is build relationships with them. Oh, I mentioned my quick pro tip, whatever you want to call it, about making them feel so bad that they have to tell you no. The way that you do that is you build relationships with them. You are super responsive. When they ask you for something, you give it to them very quickly. If you have it like within the hour, you give it to them. And if you don't, you email them back and you
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say, "I'm working on that. I will have it to you by Tuesday or whenever you are going to get it to them." Um, you want to be very transparent with what you're doing. You want to go the extra mile. You want to not just fill out the application. You want to be engaging with them and asking them questions and seeing where how you can do things that are going to increase your chances. You want to have that type of a conversation, type of a relationship with the person that you're working with
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because they are the face of the bank in your eyes. And the better off that that you can interact with them, the more likely they are to reflect that when they go to their committee and go to the people that are making the decisions. So you want to put on this really good face and and be this this incredible person that makes them want to work with you and excited to work with you. So that's reflected when they go and talk to the real decision makers that are behind the scenes that you really don't get to
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interact with. You want to have all the documents ready to go. I suggest figuring this out the first time that you do this or if you're inside of my mastermind program. This is something I help you out with. You can apply for that at alimastermind.com, but you want to have a Google Drive folder. The first time that you talk to a lender, they're going to tell you, "We need all of these documents. Make a list of those things and put them in a Google Drive folder. And then the next time you
00:13:28 - 00:14:22
talk to a lender, you have them already and you just send it off to them. It's going to help you out quite a bit. And you have to be professional. these people out there, lenders, they talk to each other. They they just they do. They go to conferences together, they go to lunch, they're at community events, they talk to each other, and if they're at a lunch, and they're like, "Oh man, I had the worst experience. I had this person, they wanted to do an assisted living facility over in in this city and I told
00:13:55 - 00:14:43
them no, they like started screaming at me, yelling at me. The email back was just horrible." They're going to say that at lunch and the other person's going to be like, "Oh, I had the exact same experience." or ah what was that person's name and it be makes them a lot more weary of you and and the industry as a whole. So don't ruin it for everybody else. But if you go in and you're like man I you give them all of the paperwork and you fill out the business plan, you have everything ready
00:14:19 - 00:15:04
to go, the application, you're asking questions, you're engaging and things like that and they have to tell you no, they're going to be at that lunch, that networking event, and they're going to say, "Man, I had this incredible person that wanted to do assisted living and we couldn't do it. like I could not convince my people to do it, but this person is rock solid. And if you ever hear of this person, you should do everything you can to work with them because they are incredible to work
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with. That's the, you know, you see the difference there, right? Who do you want to be? And the way that you do that is you build real relationships. You're super responsive. You're super respectful. And just recognize that these people are going to talk to each other. So, do not ever burn a bridge. And don't ruin it for the rest of us either, please. All right, so we covered a lot today, but if you need help and some guidance with this, make sure you go check out ALI basics. This is my
00:15:07 - 00:15:52
community where we do monthly Q&A session, weekly tips and tricks, and you get access to me to ask me questions as well along your path as you're trying to launch your assisted living business. You go check that out at assistedlivinginvesting.net/basics. We'll have a link down below. It's the most affordable way to work with me and help you reach your goals of achieving time and financial freedom so you can launch your assisted living business and have an impact in your community. Now,
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in this video, we've been talking about the some of those insider hacks that you need to help you get financing. We talked about building the business plan and doing the underwriting and talking to a ton of lenders, talking to all the lenders, and then the importance of building relationships. It is so key. Something that you absolutely have to do and and be consistent with cuz that's what's going to allow you to be successful. I hope you found this video to be helpful. If you did, make sure you
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like the video, subscribe, and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we put out content like this. We go live on Tuesdays. We put out content on Thursdays. And I'm I'm here to help you and give you some guidance as you're trying to launch your assisted living business. Does residential assisted living sound interesting to you, but you don't know how to get started? at Assisted Living Investing. I'm here to help beginners like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12
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months. I love helping and coaching people. I would love to help you out. Go check us out at assistedlivinginvesting.net. And remember, it doesn't take a lot, just a little bit. Just keep going step by step by step. And I promise you, if you're do if you do and you're consistent and persistent, you're going to be successful. Thanks for watching and have a great day. [Music]
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