Transforming Passion into Profit: The Journey of an Assisted Living Investor
May 13, 2024
Introduction
Hello everyone, Brandon Gustafson here, and welcome to my latest blog post on Assisted Living Investing. You're in the right place if you're as passionate about healthcare and real estate as I am! Today, I want to share my journey into assisted living investments, the challenges I've faced, and the successes I've celebrated. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, I hope my story inspires you and provides valuable insights into making informed investment choices in this unique sector.
Check out my video on how I got started too:
A Leap into Healthcare
My fascination with healthcare began in high school when I worked in a physical therapist’s office. This early exposure laid the groundwork for my career. After earning dual Master's degrees in Business Administration and Healthcare Administration from the University of Utah, I gained a wealth of experience working with both large healthcare organizations and startups. This mix of roles sharpened my skills and deepened my love for the healthcare sector, which I believe is one of the most impactful arenas to work in due to its direct effect on improving lives.
The Turning Point
My real estate investment journey kicked off in an unexpected way. One Sunday in 2019, I found myself at home, reading Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad" while my daughter was ill. This book changed my life and ignited a burning desire to create a better future for my family through real estate investing. This newfound passion led me to explore various aspects of real estate, but none resonated with me as much as assisted living.
Venturing into Assisted Living Investments
By May 2020, amidst the global pandemic, I was ready to dive deeper into assisted living. My father and I teamed up, using a home equity line of credit to start our search for a suitable facility. Our journey began in Draper, Utah, and though our first potential deal did not pan out, it was a pivotal learning experience. I stumbled, learned about non-disclosure agreements, and built financial calculators—all of which prepared me for future opportunities.
First Success and Expansion
Our breakthrough came with a mental health assisted living facility in Colorado Springs. This deal, closed in September 2020, was not just our first purchase but also a lesson in persistence and adaptation. Dealing with SBA funding and navigating the complexities of obtaining our license and getting certified as a Medicaid provider was a challenging yet rewarding experience that paved the way for our next acquisition—a 16-bed elderly care facility in Nampa, Idaho.
Lessons Learned and Knowledge Shared
Each investment brought its own set of challenges and learnings. From negotiating deals and managing renovations to understanding state-specific regulations and Medicaid processes, every step was a growth opportunity. Now, with successful facilities running and providing quality care to residents, I’m eager to pass on what I've learned, which I do through the Success Sytem. I believe in empowering others by sharing knowledge freely, which is why this blog and my YouTube channel focus on offering valuable insights without the hefty price tag of formal courses.
Conclusion
Assisted living investing is more than just a business venture for me; it’s a way to make a significant impact on the lives of others while fulfilling my entrepreneurial spirit. If you’re considering this path, remember that passion, perseverance, and continuous learning are your greatest assets. Stay tuned for more detailed posts where I’ll dive deeper into specifics like Medicaid processes and facility management tips.
Engage and Learn
I’d love to hear from you! Whether you’re curious about specific aspects of assisted living investing or have stories of your own, please comment below. Let’s learn and grow together in this rewarding field. And don't forget if you need some help getting started, you can download the FREE Business Plan Checklist to get you moving.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Thank you for reading, and here’s to your success in making a meaningful impact through assisted living investments!
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00
hey guys it's brandon gustafson welcome to assisted living investing i'm happy you could be here to watch the next video on my channel and get to know me a little bit better in this video i'm gonna talk to you a little bit about who i am my background in healthcare and how i got started in assisted living investing i'm happy i'm excited to to share that information with you i graduated from the university of utah with a master's in business administration and a master's in
00:00:39
healthcare administration in 2015. i've always been interested in healthcare when i was in high school i worked in a physical therapist office and as an administrative intern and really enjoyed that i worked for large healthcare organizations you know 14 fortune 100 companies just huge companies i've worked for non-profits i've worked for startups and have gained a lot of really great experience working in the healthcare industry and i love working in a healthcare industry because i get to help people
00:01:12
it drives me it's something that i love doing i love being in this industry and being able to help other people it's why i got into healthcare and is what really interested me in getting involved in assisted living in 2019 uh actually in june of 2019 i started really getting interested in investing in in real estate and and what that was like my daughter got sick one day and and so i stayed home from church i stayed home from going to a family dinner and i read rich dad poor dad in one day and like
00:01:46
like many of you it changed my life it it just lit a fire underneath me to be like this is what i want to do i i want to get involved in creating a better life for me and for my family and after reading rich dad poor dad i started going down a path that led me to where i'm at today in may of 2020 i was getting bored with the pandemic we were you know three months into it at that point i just needed something to do i'd gone through a lot of real estate investing type courses and gained a lot
00:02:16
of knowledge there and was was getting pretty excited about it um and i had done some research in assisted living investing i had re read gene guerino's book i had found a few other books that i that helped me gain the knowledge that i wanted but i had gone through this real estate course and gained a lot of experience through that and gained a lot of knowledge but what i found is i i could have all the resources available to me for free i didn't need to pay for a course and so i really started digging into
00:02:48
youtube and other resources finding videos on on how to do funding and how to operate a facility and how to run a facility how to purchase a facility a lot of that came from other youtube videos people that invest in assisted living but also i was looking at things around multi-family investments and how to get involved in that and drew a lot of parallels there and gain a lot of great experience and what i found is i could find the resources online for free and really that's what i want to do with
00:03:18
this channel is create a resource for you so that you can do investing without trying to find a course without trying to pay somebody thousands of dollars to gain the knowledge that you need uh to be successful in acquiring an assisted living facility so like i said in may of 2020 i started getting really serious about assisted living i ended up partnering with my dad who had money through a home equity line of credit through a heloc and we were able to go and really start looking for a facility
00:03:49
i'm from utah and kind of wanted to invest somewhere near me and i found a facility in draper utah which is in the the salt lake valley and i found it on a resource called loopnet and that's something i'm going to get into here in in a future video but i found that resource and i reached out to the broker this is the first thing that i ever did and i reached out to that broker i had no idea what i was doing i was actually driving to the chiropractor to get some work done on my back i gave him a call stumbled my way
00:04:19
through the first phone call found out what a non-disclosure agreement was reached out to a lawyer friend of mine to make sure that a non-disclosure agreement was something that is real that you know that i could look at i ended up signing that and got the financials in and from there i started building a calculator which is which is a resource i would love to share with you please comment below if you'd like to to have access to that resource and i'm going to have a video that i go over how
00:04:43
to use it and how to work through it but i got the numbers for this facility in in draper utah and i started building this calculator and started analyzing the deal and trying to figure out what it was ultimately found out it just wasn't the deal for us it wasn't going to give us what we wanted it wasn't going to hit our allow us to hit our goals our metrics that we had but it was still an awesome experience to just reach out and have a conversation with somebody and just stumble my way through
00:05:08
through the process uh and i caught the bug i started reaching out to people i started looking at deals i got several deals on my plate just by looking at loopnet and figuring out how to how to have a conversation and how to act like an investor as we decided that this opportunity in draper wasn't the opportunity for us we decided to reach out to a real estate group that we were a part of and a person that i had networked with in the past and he introduced me to somebody else that was interested in real estate
00:05:39
investing specifically in assisted living and i had a phone call with that individual we had a great great conversation and he let me know they were purchasing a facility in denver colorado and for those that don't have a map denver and salt lake city are relatively close but it's about a nine hour drive like it's not you know it's not next door it it's still a distance and i had a conversation with him and he introduced me to his broker uh because the the people that they were
00:06:07
purchasing their facility from actually had another facility that was for sale we reached out to that broker and we we started developing a relationship and and this guy is a rock star he's just fantastic to work with he helped us through the process he was incredible at helping us negotiate helping us walk through the process of something that was so new to us there was a facility in colorado springs colorado and we decided that that was something that we wanted to pursue we signed the non-disclosure agreement with
00:06:36
them and we started moving forward in having conversations to purchase that facility it was a 16 bed mental health facility which to be honest i didn't realize i didn't i never had clicked in my mind that there is a spot for mental health assisted living facilities it makes total sense when you think about it it was not something that i had considered or even heard about in all my research i was always focused on elderly care and and what that was but as we started digging into it we decided that this was
00:07:10
this was great opportunity it was a great way for us to get our feet wet and to move forward and purchase the facility we started that process at the end of may of 2020 and we ended up closing on that on that deal in september of 2020. there were a lot of bumps along the way we we did sba funding trying to find a lender was difficult we talked to several lenders probably six or seven before we found a lender that we were comfortable working with and that was going to work with us and that we could work together and and
00:07:40
get the deal closed that we felt comfortable with we we ended up going out we drove out to colorado springs which was about a 12 hour drive i have two little girls it was a long drive i had to convince my wife to do it with me it was but it was a wonderful experience we loved going out there we loved seeing it and we also had to deal with doing this in the middle of a pandemic so getting into the house was was tricky getting somebody in there to to do the home inspection was a little bit tricky
00:08:06
but we were able to get it all done we closed on that facility in september of 2020 it's been just a wonderful blessing since then i'm so grateful that we were able to to close on that purchase and and to own that facility now it's not all been simple since we purchased the facility it's a largely medicaid facility so we had to figure out what the medicaid process was like we had to go through the process of getting credentialed with medicaid so that we could get reimbursed for our residents to stay
00:08:33
there and i'll get into the medicaid process in a future video so you can understand what that's like and what it's like to be credentialed and what the reimbursement structure is like being a medicaid facility and how you can operate as a medicaid facility and and make it work and and just the hoops you have to jump through so you have a good understanding of that i'm gonna get into all that in future videos as well but i'm going to get into all of that and teach you and share with you my
00:08:57
knowledge and how we went through that process as we were winding down the process with the purchase in colorado springs i was kind of starting to get bored i wanted to do it again i love the process of going and finding a deal and underwriting a deal and and negotiating and working with the lender to close the i just love that part of the process of of acquiring a facility and decided we wanted to do another one i convinced my parents again using that same heloc there was there's still some money available
00:09:25
that uh we purchased another one we started looking on loopnet and then i had a conversation with our broker and found out that he could work kind of nationwide and we we narrowed our criteria down to something that worked for us uh different cap rates and locations did some research on which markets we were really interested in and where we wanted to work and ultimately we found an opportunity in nampa idaho that we went under contract in october of 2020 and we started the process over again and to be completely honest
00:09:55
it was super stressful to close out one deal and start another deal i was super busy and trying to get that done i have a full-time job i was trying to to work that full-time job and and everything that that entails it was stressful it was a lot of work but i loved it i loved being able to to do that process and to purchase another facility so we went under contract on that facility in nampa idaho in october of 2020 and we started the process over again after closing on our on our facility in colorado springs
00:10:30
and we started over and it was again another stressful process we were in a different state now uh so there were different rules and regulations and and different uh governing bodies that we had to work with and different people we had to build relationships with but it was still so much fun and so exciting our facility in in nampa idaho is actually a 16 bed facility as well uh we we did an addition and added two beds onto it we did a conversion and added two beds into the facility so that we could have it up to 16 beds
00:11:02
and that facility is elderly care it's also a medicaid facility and so i have experience working in medicaid in multiple states and what it's like to go through that process again i'm super excited to share that information with you we closed on that facility in february of 2021 again on an sba loan different lender we were able to work through things and get everything done but it was still just exciting to do it and and to learn that process and develop those relationships we've
00:11:31
owned that facility now since february of 2021 and things are are going smoothly there we gained so much experience from the first one that made doing the second one so much easier and the purchase of this second facility has gone so much more smoothly it's been just so much easier to to know what to expect and how much money we needed to have in reserves and and what that process was going to look like and how we could close the deal and get it done and it's been so much fun to learn the process
00:12:00
since then we try to visit one of those facilities every other month and we have weekly conversations with our facility administrators to make sure things are running smoothly and they have all the things that they need and that they're able to run and operate efficiently and keep our residents safe and so we can serve our residents which is something that is what i wanted to get into assisted living for and i'm able to to fulfill that dream and and receive this great satisfaction that comes from
00:12:29
caring for other people and providing a place for them to live and have the things that they want to have and live the life that they want to live and it's so much fun it's so exciting to be able to to do that and i'm so excited to share this process with you so that you can do the same thing for your facility now i'm sure you're thinking to yourself wow this guy has a lot of healthcare experience he's worked in healthcare in the past and that's why he's able to be
00:12:55
successful i'm here to tell you you don't need to have that experience you can do it without the experience in healthcare my dad works in the construction industry he loves it as well he's gotten so involved and he loves having the houses he loves being able to care for the residents my wife my kids love it my mom loves it who's involved we've taken my siblings to our facilities and let them get to know the residents and it's so much fun to be able to do that and let them see those people and develop
00:13:24
those new relationships it's so meaningful you can do this you don't have to have experience in healthcare as long as you're passionate about it and you want to help make a difference in the lives of people around you be successful you can do it i promise you can do it it's going to be so much fun you're going to love the journey you're you're going to you're just going to love it it's going to be so much fun so that's that's my background that's who i am that's my experience
00:13:49
uh that's how i got him into assisted living uh that's that's my story i love i love working in assisted living i love owning these facilities and having the opportunity to serve these people and work with them on a daily basis and get to think about them and how i can help them and and those and all those things and how i can help them and and make their lives better it's so much fun i'm so excited to share this information with you i've shared my journey with you i'm so
00:14:15
excited to get more in depth and how i can help you along this process help you along this journey and help you learn and be compassionate about this just the same way that i am so make sure you like comment subscribe to the channel especially comment if you if you want some of those resources talking about you know the calculator uh how to use loopnet how to navigate the medicaid process how to work with a lender how to interact with a broker all of those things it's it can be awkward it can be difficult
00:14:45
but i'm here to help you with it make sure you comment what you want to learn about so i can see those and make videos that are what you want what you need on your journey to becoming a successful owner of an assisted living facility it's going to be great i'm so excited to go on this journey with you and get to know you a little bit better and continue building this community i'm so excited to see what we can do together so make sure you like comment and subscribe to my channel
00:15:11
and i'll see you next time
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