Unlocking Wealth: How To Start Investing In Assisted Living
Sep 05, 2025
If you’re a beginner wanting to launch your assisted living business in the next 12 months, you’re in the right place!
Today, I’m going to walk you through how to get started investing in assisted living. Whether you’re a real estate investor, entrepreneur, nurse, or healthcare worker, this guide will help you build a solid foundation to succeed.
Let’s get started! ๐
Check out this video, too:
Why Building a Business Foundation Is Key
Getting into assisted living can feel confusing. You might be wondering, “Where do I even start?”
Here’s the truth: the most important thing you can do is build a strong business foundation. This foundation includes:
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A clear business plan
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Detailed underwriting (that’s your financial modeling)
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Thorough market research
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Setting up the right business entity
I always tell people, “You need a business foundation.” It makes everything else easier — from getting funding to finding the right house and having those important conversations.
If you want help with this, check out the Assisted Living Launchpad Bundle, which covers all these foundational pieces step-by-step.
Step 1: Create Your Business Plan
Lenders, partners, and even you — all want to see a business plan.
One of the lending brokers I worked with said, “Lenders will ask for it on day one.” So, don’t wait!
Your business plan should include:
๐ Your mission, vision, and values — What’s your “why”?
๐ Your goals — How many facilities do you want? What population will you serve?
๐ Financial projections — How will the business make money?
Writing it down makes your plan real.
A solid business plan gives you clarity and direction so you don’t get sidetracked.
Step 2: Master Underwriting (Know Your Numbers)
I love underwriting. It’s all about working the numbers to see if your business will be profitable.
You need to understand:
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Your expenses — wages, insurance, food, utilities, mortgage payments
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Your income — How many residents will you serve and what will they pay?
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Profitability — Is the business going to make money?
You can’t just watch YouTube videos and take someone’s word for it. You’ve got to crunch your own numbers.
That’s why I created a free Underwriting Calculator. It helps you get comfortable with the numbers so they’re not confusing or scary.
Lenders and partners want to see these numbers too — so knowing them gives you confidence and shows you mean business.
Step 3: Do Your Market Research
Market research is about checking if your location can support your assisted living business.
Ask yourself:
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Is the senior population growing or shrinking?
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What’s the competition like?
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Are there taxes, politics, or other factors that could affect your business?
This step is super important. Assisted living is a form of real estate investing, but it’s also a business that impacts people’s lives.
I include a full market research guide in the Launchpad Bundle — updated yearly — to help you find the best states and markets for your business.
Step 4: Set Up Your Business Entity
You need to decide how to legally set up your business. This protects you and your assets.
Options include:
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Sole Proprietor — You use your Social Security number, but this leaves you open to liability.
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LLC (Limited Liability Company) — Limits your personal liability, commonly used for assisted living.
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S Corporation — May have tax benefits but more paperwork and requires advice from an accountant.
You can even have multiple entities — one owning the real estate and another running the business. I provide a free Lease Agreement Template to help with this setup.
I’m not an attorney, so please talk to one before making this decision and make sure it's done right!
Final Thoughts: Take Action Now!
Getting started is easier than you think if you focus on building your foundation first.
Remember these key steps:
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Build your business plan
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Master your underwriting
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Do your market research
โ
Set up the right business entity
I help beginners with all of this inside the Assisted Living Launchpad Bundle. If you want expert guidance, it’s a perfect place to start.
Ready to Launch Your Assisted Living Business?
๐ Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start planning your foundation.
๐ Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Got questions? Drop them in the comments — I’d love to hear from you!
Show full transcript ๐
Transcript
00:00:00 - 00:00:52
Hey friend, it's Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living Investing. I help beginners like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12 months. In today's video, we're going to be talking about how to get started investing in assisted living. So, if you need some help just like figuring out how to do it, make sure you stick around for today's [Music] video. Hey friend, welcome back to Assisted Living Investing. Before we get started, I want to remind you to get over to the website assisted
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livinginvesting.net net and you'll see the big blue box in the top right corner to get yourself your free underwriting calculator. It's one of the best tools to really help you make progress and help you launch your assisted living business. A key component. So, make sure you go grab that at assisted livinginvesting.net. Now, let's get into the topic for today's video. Today, we're talking about how to get started investing in assisted living. And it can be a topic that people just man it can
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be confusing. It can be really hard to figure out, you know, you want to get into assisted living, you're just not sure how to do it. You know, maybe you're a real estate investor or you want to be a real estate investor. Maybe you're already an entrepreneur and and you see this as a really great way to move things forward. Or maybe you're a business owner already and and you kind of have dabbled in a little bit of, you know, home health care or kind of in the healthcare world a little bit from a
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business standpoint and and this seems like a really cool play to get you into it. Or maybe you're a nurse, maybe you're a healthcare worker and you want to do this. Which one are you? Uh, type that down below. Are you a nurse? Are you an entrepreneur? Real estate investor. Would love to hear from you. What are you? And tell me because I'd love to make sure I'm meeting your needs with where you're at and and where your career trajectory is is going and why you want to get into this. Now, as
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you're getting started, and I teach this to people all the time, one of the biggest things that you should be doing to help you get started in launching your assisted living business is building a business foundation. It is absolutely crucial to everything that you're going to be doing as you move forward to getting the funding to getting the house situated the way that you need it to be, having those conversations, you need a business foundation. Now, what's in that business foundation? You're going to be looking
00:02:08 - 00:03:00
at a business plan. You're going to be looking at your underwriting, market research. You need to create that entity as well. These are all really key components to building the foundation and something that is going to help you have this base to stand on so that you can then make some progress. When you have that that foundation, it makes it so much easier, makes all of your other conversations go so much more smoothly. So, you need to have this foundation. And I have a special course for you.
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It's called the Assisted Living Launchpad Bundle. We're going to link that down below. So, go grab that. But it is all about building that foundation, the key component that you need to launch a successful assisted living business. So, make sure you go grab that. Again, it's the assisted living launchpad bundle. Now that you know what those big components are to building that foundation, let's dive a little bit deeper into each of those. So, let's talk about building a solid
00:02:56 - 00:03:46
business plan. The reasons why you need it is number one, a lender is going to ask for it. They absolutely will. If you haven't watched the video that I did with Regina, one of the lending brokers that I worked with, go make sure you go watch that. We'll link that up above. But in that video, she brought up completely unprompted that the importance of building out a business plan and lenders will ask for it. They want to see it. They will ask for it on day one. Where's your business plan?
00:03:22 - 00:04:13
Send us your business plan and we can have a conversation. You need to have that in place because it is one of the first things that people are going to ask for. It's going to give you clarity as you're trying to figure out which way am I going to go? How am I going to get this to work? That business plan is giving you clarity. It helps you set your mission and vision and values. And when you have those things in place, it really makes it a lot easier for you to make progress and know which way you
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want to be going as you're trying to launch your assistant living business. It's a crucial piece to help you just have the direction that you need so that you don't skip steps or get sidetracked with something else. If you don't write it down and it's just in your head, it's just going to be that thing that's on the side and and one day it will have been on a task list for you to get to and it'll be six months from today and you'll just be like, you know, I'm never
00:04:12 - 00:05:00
this cool idea. I'm just never going to do it and then you just take it off your task list and it goes away. But if you sit down and you build this business plan and you get your mission and your vision and your values and you outline your vision for where you want this to go, how many facilities do you want, where do you want it to be at, all of those things, what population do you want to serve, how many beds do you want to have in the facility? You write those things out, it's solidifying it in your
00:04:36 - 00:05:25
mind. It's going to allow you to really make some solid progress. So, that's a second benefit for writing the business plan. The third one that I wanted to give you is partners are going to want to see it. So, if you are trying to do this, whether it's a lender that wants to see it or if you want to work with a partner and you're trying to convince them to work with you, they're going to want to see more than just like, oh yeah, you know, I saw this guy on YouTube. He talks about investing in
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assisted living. It's a really cool thing. And and then you share my video so he, you know, your friend can see that as well. You're going to need something more than that. They're going to want to see how much thought have you given to this idea. Like, yeah. Sounds cool. I mean, Brandon's a really cool guy. He's got incredible content on YouTube. I liked his videos. It was It was awesome. But how are we going to make some real progress there and having that business plan is something that's going to allow
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you to make some really good tangible progress and show that you're serious about getting into assisted living. Now, let's talk about underwriting. I I love underwriting. I love working with Excel. I love working with numbers. If you have not gotten to assisted living.net and grab that free underwriting calculator. It's the big blue box in the top right corner. You cannot miss it. Make sure you go and grab that tool. But if you have downloaded that and you open it up and you're just like, "Oh my gosh, why
00:05:54 - 00:06:46
are there so many numbers and I'm so confused?" I'm sorry, but I'm passionate about it. Like, I love it. I I spent so much time building that thing out. It makes a ton of sense to me. It's really helped me make some good progress. If you need help understanding it, make sure you go grab the Launchpad. Again, we're going to link that down below cuz I teach you exactly how to do it. There's a bunch of courses in there underwrite with me, exactly how I would do it, very in-depth description of the
00:06:20 - 00:07:19
calculator and how it works, all of those things. So, if you need some help with it, make sure you go grab a launchpad. Beyond that, what you're going to see, it is the thing that is going to help you determine if this is profitable or not. And you have to determine that. We did a video a few weeks ago on is six beds profitable. We'll link that up above for you as well. But in that video, I kind of went through what you have to do. It is so important for you to understand if something is profitable. You cannot just
00:06:50 - 00:07:41
watch somebody's YouTube video. As much as I appreciate it and I love that you like the videos and you subscribe, like, I I love it and I thank you so much for doing that. Just because I said that, hey, you know, here's this this opportunity is great doesn't mean I want you to take my word for it. need you to actually look at this and I want you to determine for yourself, hey, is this really profitable? That is what underwriting is for. And when you take your time to underwrite a deal to
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understand the finances and the impact that it's going to have, it allows you to have confidence to move forward or it's going to be the thing that tells you, you know what, a three bed facility might not be the best decision for you. a six bed facility, you know, even this 16 bed facility with what you're looking at and and just the area and the debt service that you're going to have to have and what you're going to pay there for XYZ doesn't make sense. So, you have to understand those finances. That's
00:07:39 - 00:08:26
where underwriting really comes into play. It's going to help you make some good progress. It lets you understand those finances. Um, and understanding the finances is key. I have videos on the channel. We'll link one up above where I talk about the five biggest expenses in assisted living. wages, insurance, all the different types of insurance you need. There's the food you got to pay for your residence. There's your debt service, your mortgage payment that you got to make, and also the
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utilities that you're going to have to pay. Those are the five biggest expenses. And if you have a a feel for what those are and you're confident in them, you're going to understand a lot of what's going into it. And then it's just kind of backing your way in with what the income is going to look like. And now you can see if it's going to be profitable. But it all comes back to underwriting and understanding exactly what you're getting into there. The next reason why you need to underwrite is it
00:08:25 - 00:09:18
gets you comfortable with those expenses. They don't feel like ambiguous numbers that are just all over the place and they're just like falling from the sky and and you're just confused when you look at the calculator that you get at assisted livinginvesting.net. I don't want that for you. You need to get really comfortable with what you're looking at. And when you do that, it's going to help you make some really good progress and feel confident in your investment. So, you need to do that.
00:08:51 - 00:09:42
Also, lenders are going to ask for it. Your partners, you know, going back to what we talked about with the business plan, lenders, partners, they all want to see the numbers. They want to make sure that it works. And so, you have to have that component also in place. Absolutely key. Business plan, underwriting, two of the most important things that you can do if you want to launch an assisted living business. If you want to get into assisted living, you think it's interesting, you have to do those two things. you do those two,
00:09:16 - 00:10:03
you're going to be, you know, 95% ahead of anybody else that wants to do this. So, make sure you're doing those things. And you can do that today. You don't have to find the perfect property in order to do that. Can help for sure, but if you start building that foundation today, and I can help you do that with the launchpad, go get the link down below. Um, but if you do that, you're going to be miles ahead of anybody else. You're going to be so much more successful. Now, the third thing that I
00:09:41 - 00:10:29
want to talk to you about is market research. And in the launchpad, we actually I give you my market research guide. We update it on an annual basis. We're going to revamp a ton of that this year. We're always looking for ways to improve it. And in there, I'm going to give you like my top states, my top markets for where you should do it, why you should do it, and help you understand how to do the research for it. So, make sure you go grab that. But market research is key to see if you're
00:10:04 - 00:10:53
going to be able to make this work. So, you want to be making sure that the population is there, that it can support the business. you know, how many potential residents are there? Is it growing? Is it shrinking? What's what are the trends there? What's the competition like? You want to be looking at other things, just a bunch of different factors like politics and taxes and the impact that those things are going to have on you as you are running your business. These are all things that I I go through in the market
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research guide that you can get as a part of the the Launchpad bundle. again, make sure you go grab that because it's going to help you out in doing the market research that you need to do to feel confident in the area where you're trying to invest. You I I think it's so cool that some of you have houses already and you want to do a conversion on it. And some of you have very realistic expectations of what that looks like and some of you have unrealistic expectations of what that's
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going to look like. But what I want you to do is make sure you understand what the market's going to hold for you. Make sure you do the research. Who's your competition? What's that going to look like? How's it going to impact you? You have to understand these things and not just go into it blindly. Just like real estate investing, I mean, assisted living investing, this is a form of real estate investing. There's more of a business attached to it. You have a lot more people's lives like in your hands as you
00:11:21 - 00:12:14
go through this on a per capita basis, on a per house basis. You're touching a lot more people's lives there. It's very important for you to understand what that's going to look like for you as you get started and market research is key to understanding how that's going to work. Okay, so that's the third thing here that's a part of building this foundation, your market research. Now, let's talk about setting up the entity. So, setting up an entity for assisted living. Number one, I'm not an attorney.
00:11:48 - 00:12:42
I don't even play one on TV. I highly recommend that you go and you talk to an attorney that you figure out what the situation is going to be best for you in your situation. Now, there are a few options there. There's you could be a sole proprietor, which means, hey, I'm signing this. I'm using my social security number. Everything's in my name. Opens you up to a lot of liability. There's an an LLC, a limited liability company. This limits your liability. It's in the name, right? It
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allows you to put things in the name of a business. there's a business tax ID, an EIN number. You can use that instead of your own your own social security number. It it really kind of offloads things there. Doesn't really help you from a tax perspective, but it does from a liability perspective. There's also an escorp. So, an escorp is is a corporation. It's an S class. I don't remember what S stands for, but it is is something that you could use to set up. There can be tax benefits there, but not
00:12:43 - 00:13:30
always. And so, you have to be kind of careful with that. These are questions that you want to be asking an accountant as you're trying to set these things up. You could have multiple entities. You could have the real estate owned by an entity. You could have the business owned by an entity and set up a lease agreement. We actually have a tool for that for you as well if you go to assisted livinginvesting.net/lease-aggreement. I have a a lease agreement template that you can use for the real estate leasing
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out to the operating entity. So, make sure you go grab that tool. Can really help you out along your journey. But you have to figure out which one is going to work best for you. So, I'd love to hear from you. Are you going to do an LLC? Type in LLC. What about escorp? You know, type in escorp down below. Or are you going to do a soul prop? Again, I'm not an attorney. I don't recommend you do that. But if you're going to do a soul prop, type in soul prop down below. Would love to hear from you. Which way
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are you leaning as you get into this? And would you like more information about the types of entities that you could be creating to help you launch your assisted living business? Type that down below as well. Now, all of those four things, they are a part of building out your business. It's all a part of building out the foundation. You got to build the business plan. You got to do the underwriting. You have to do the market research. You got to set up the entity. That is the foundation. I help
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you out with that in the launchpad. I've talked about it a few times. We're going to have a link down below. Make sure you go and grab that tool for you. Uh it's an incredible course. So much content in there. It will blow your mind. So, make sure you go and grab that. Asliving.net/launchpad net/aunchpad or just grab it at the link below. If you found this video to be helpful, like the video, subscribe, ring the bell, make sure you do all of those things because I want to help you and I want to help
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others like you launch their assisted living business. I love doing I love helping you make progress and reaching your goals to create more time and financial freedom for you and for your family. 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 just like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12 months. I want to thank you for watching. Thanks for being here and remind you that it doesn't take a lot.
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Just just a little bit. Just keep going step by step by step. And I promise you, if you do, and you are consistent and persistent, you're going to be successful. Thanks for watching and have a great day. [Music]
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