Why Traditional Rentals Start to Feel Small After You Discover Assisted Living
May 27, 2026
If you’ve been investing in single-family rentals for a while, you may have started to feel stuck. Maybe the cash flow is fine, but adding more properties feels exhausting. Then you discover assisted living, and suddenly the opportunity feels much bigger.
Want the full breakdown? Watch the video below👇
Traditional Rentals Usually Have a Ceiling
Most traditional real estate investing is based on one tenant paying one rent payment. That means one home creates one stream of income.
That can work well for building long-term wealth. You get appreciation, tax benefits, and monthly cash flow. But eventually, many investors realize they would need 10, 20, or even 50 homes to hit their bigger financial goals.
That is usually when things start to feel “small.”
In assisted living, one property can create income from multiple residents instead of just one tenant.
đź’ˇ That is why assisted living feels “next level” to so many real estate investors.
Assisted Living Turns One Property Into Multiple Income Streams
In traditional rentals, you may collect $1,500 to $2,500 per month for the entire home. In assisted living, revenue is often earned per resident bed instead.
That changes the math completely.
A six-bedroom assisted living home may serve several residents at once, which creates far more income potential. Of course, there are more expenses too, including staffing, food, licensing, and care services. But the earning potential is much larger when the business is run correctly.
âś… Assisted living combines:
-
Real estate income
-
Business income
-
Tax advantages
-
Long-term demand
This is why many investors start looking at assisted living as a business instead of “just another rental.”
Demand for Senior Housing Keeps Growing
One of the biggest reasons assisted living feels exciting is because the need is growing fast.
The baby boomer generation is aging, and millions of seniors will need care in the coming decades. The current number of assisted living beds available in the United States is far below future demand.
When demand is high and supply is low, businesses can often charge premium rates. That creates opportunities for operators who provide great care and a strong resident experience.
đź’ˇ This is not just about making money. It is also about helping families who need quality care options.
That combination of purpose and profitability is what attracts many people to the assisted living industry.
Assisted Living Requires an Operator Mindset
This is the part many people overlook.
Assisted living is not passive real estate investing. It is an operating business.
You need systems, staff, policies, and leadership. You have to understand licensing rules and create processes that help the business run smoothly.
That can sound intimidating at first, but it is also what creates the value.
In traditional rentals, your success often depends on the property itself. In assisted living, your success depends on the care experience, the systems you build, and the team you lead.
âś… Strong assisted living operators focus on:
-
Hiring great staff
-
Building systems
-
Following regulations
-
Creating a safe resident experience
-
Running the home like a real business
That operational side is what helps facilities grow and become profitable over time.
The Right Systems Can Help You Scale Faster
One thing that is really well done is the assisted living rewards structure. Licensed facilities require policies and procedures from the beginning, which helps create a stronger business foundation.
That matters because systems create consistency.
When your systems improve:
-
Your resident care improves
-
Your team performs better
-
Your occupancy improves
-
Your business becomes more valuable
Over time, many operators use profits from one home to help fund another location.
That is where scaling starts to happen.
Wrap Up
Traditional rentals can absolutely build wealth, but many investors eventually want something bigger. Assisted living offers the chance to combine real estate, business ownership, and meaningful impact all in one model.
The key is understanding that assisted living is not just about owning property. It is about building systems, serving people well, and thinking like an operator. If that excites you, this industry may be worth exploring further.
If you need help creating a business plan for your assisted living business, check out the Free Business Plan Checklist.
And if you’re ready to figure out your next step, join me for the next Roadmap Challenge, where I’ll walk you through how to get started.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00 - 00:00:50
Hey friend, have you been investing in real estate and you're just like, man, this kind of feels small. Especially I just found this thing called assisted living and it feels it feels big. It feels exciting. It feels new. It feels like, hey, I could make thousands of dollars per month rather than just a few hundred dollars here with my single family rental. This feels exciting. And that old stuff feels kind of small. Well, we're going to talk about that in today's video. help you understand how
00:00:25 - 00:01:13
traditional real estate feels small when you compare it to assisted living and how you can kind of start making a shift to get into the world of assisted living. So, if you're interested in that, make sure you stick around for today's video. Hey friend, my name is Brandon Gustafson. I help first-time assisted living entrepreneurs launch profitable purpose- driven businesses, creating prosperity, purpose, and peace in their lives. I love doing it. love helping people just like you launch their own assisted living business and
00:00:49 - 00:01:33
would love to have you kind of work with me to help you figure out how to do that. If you're interested in learning what that process looks like and joining me in an upcoming challenge which is live, just type in roadmap and we'll get you a link to join us in our next roadmap challenge. I'll also be talking a little bit about it here at the end of the video. So, make sure you stick around for that. And with that, let's get into today's video. All right, so let's talk about the burning question
00:01:11 - 00:01:58
here. Maybe you've been investing in traditional, you know, real estate, single family homes, maybe even some smaller multifamily properties, and you're like, man, this is cool. This has been good. It's kind of given me some extra cash flow. I'm feeling pretty happy about this, and it looks good. Well, I'm here to tell you that you can exponentially grow that if you get into something like assisted living. This is just an incredible opportunity. What I want to talk to you about today is why
00:01:35 - 00:02:32
some of those rentals, they feel like they're just like limited from a long-term perspective. like, yeah, it gives you some good extra cash flow on a monthly basis and that's fine and it's good. You know, it's what you got into real estate for, but when you think about, you know, adding another 10, 20, 50 homes to your portfolio, you're like, "Oh man, that just seems like it would be exhausting and I don't think I really want to do that." And so, you kind of get stuck in this mode and this method,
00:02:03 - 00:02:53
this mindset of, "Yeah, three is good enough for me. I'll be fine with that and I'll make it work." Well, in assisted living, it feels next level because it is. You're going to be able to take one home, just like one single family home, as long as it's laid out correctly and you have a lot of rooms in it and things like that. Has to be a pretty big nice home. But you're going to be able to take that and turn it into thousands of dollars in cash flow. What you would have if you had those 10, 20,
00:02:28 - 00:03:26
50 homes that you're trying to do, you can do that in one to three homes here inside of assisted living. It's pretty awesome. It is truly next level. and the revenue and the cash flow, all of those things, the control that you have, it's all going to shift and help you get to where you want to be. But it does require more of an operational mindset. It's going to require more out of you and understanding how a business works because it is more involved. It is next level in every sense of the word, but it
00:02:57 - 00:03:48
is not so next level that you can't accomplish it. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. So I want to talk to you a little bit about traditional real estate, right? When you are working in real estate, you're looking at revenue per door. That's typically what you're going to be looking at. Your rentals are going to be capped by that market rent. It's based off of how many doors you have. And so, let's say you're getting between $200 and $1,000 per door, which is, you know,
00:03:23 - 00:04:17
that's pretty good, good cash flow. You're building some long-term equity and and appreciation with your home. You're getting those real estate benefits and everything. Like all of those things are good, but that one tenant is one income stream. Like your one house is just one income stream. It's the same house and it's just like it's pretty limited. The thing with assisted living is you take that one house and you are doing this by bed or I mean if you want to do it by interior
00:03:50 - 00:04:48
doors, right? That's what you're doing here in the world of assisted living. You take that one property, the same house depending on the size of it and you're multiplying that revenue potential. You're going from, hey, we're going to charge $1,500 to $2,500 for the entire house to we're going to charge $4,000 to $6,000 per bed inside of the house. Like, that's the difference. It is exponentially just like so much greater when it comes to the world of assisted living. You get business
00:04:19 - 00:05:13
income, you get real estate income, you get a bunch of tax benefits. Like, it really is one of those things that's just like, you know, just mind-blowing. like, oh my gosh, like what have I been doing here where I've been charging $1,500 a month for this home, $2,000 a month for this home, and you know, I've got to make my mortgage payment and some of these other expenses and things like that, and I'm I'm doing okay. You know, I'm getting 400 bucks a month off of it. That's pretty good. Whereas, you look at
00:04:46 - 00:05:40
it and you're like, man, I have this home that has six bedrooms in it. How many residents could I fit in there? And and then you start looking at it and you're like, oh, wow. I could put in six, eight, 10 residents in here and I'm charging them each $5,000 per month. And so I'm making 30, 40, $50,000 per month in my income. Now, there are going to be more expenses, so you need to be aware of that. But like the earning potential, the revenue potential is there and it's pretty incredible when you look at it
00:05:13 - 00:05:54
from an assisted living standpoint. That's something that I want to make sure that you understand. So if you need some help just kind of underwriting and and making sure you get this, just type in calculator. I've got a free underwriting calculator I'll send over to you. send a link to you and then you can go grab that. It will help you out as you're trying to kind of navigate this entire process. Um, and in my road map challenge, we actually go through some basic underwriting so you know
00:05:33 - 00:06:25
exactly what to expect. I don't want you to just dive into this and be like, "Oh, I could do it." You know, I got six bedrooms. We could put six people in here. That's $30,000 in income. Boom. I'm good. There there's expenses and you got to be aware of them. But I'm going to help you do that in the road map challenge. Type in road map. We'll get you the link uh down in the comments. But your cash flow inside of an assisted living home becomes so much more powerful because in traditional real
00:05:59 - 00:06:57
estate, if you have a vacancy, it's killing your rental profits. Like totally just You went from cool, I'm, you know, I'm charging 1,500 to $2,000 per month. I'm making 400 bucks a month off of it to now I lost that resident. I'm vacant. I am losing $2,000 a month or whatever your mortgage payment is going to be. you know, $1,500 a month there and you're really just kind of losing it and that can hurt a lot. And if you have vacancy for a long period of time, you know, like it's it's really
00:06:28 - 00:07:19
rough. That can happen in assisted living as well, but you have multiple residents, so you're spreading out that risk, which is nice. Now, the money can dry up quickly. This is why I want you to underwrite correctly. You should be hitting your revenue goal at 80% occupancy is what I want you to do. So, your break even point should be closer to like 60 70% of all your beds. That's what you should be doing when you do your underwriting to make sure this works for you. We go over that in my
00:06:53 - 00:07:45
programs. Take the quiz, aliquiz.com. We got a QR code for you there to see which is the best one for you. But I want to make sure that you understand how these numbers work. The other really cool thing here about assisted living, and you get this with real estate, like there's a housing shortage in the United States, right? Everybody needs homes and and there's a big shortage. That shortage exists as well for assisted living. This massive shortage of homes, the supply and demand here, like it just
00:07:19 - 00:08:26
makes so much sense. For the next few decades, as the baby boomer population ages up, by 2030, all of them will be 65 and older. And by 2050, there's a projection of 58 to 80, I think it's 82 million seniors, 65 plus, are going to be in the United States. I use a rule that I call my 5% rule. And that 5% rule, what it says is 5% of the entire population that I want to serve is going to need assisted living services at some point. Okay? So, if there's 58 million Americans that are going to be 65 and
00:07:53 - 00:08:48
older, and that's the population I want to serve, 5% of them are going to need assisted living services, that's about 2 and a half million, probably a little bit more than that. The bed count that is available today in the United States, it is less than half of that. So there's this huge tidal wave that is coming. We don't have the supply. There's going to be huge demand. And if you know economics, when there is a huge demand with very little supply, you get to charge premium rates for that. Like
00:08:21 - 00:09:22
that's just just the way that pure economics work, right? And so when we look at that, it just is opening up so many doors for us to create good experiences for people, establish ourselves in the marketplace, and create a premium product, a premium experience that people are going to flock to and want to be a part of. And that's just going to boom just incredibly in the coming decades. Like not years, the coming decades. This is a huge opportunity and something you can get out in front of right now in the
00:08:51 - 00:09:44
beginning and it's going to be pretty awesome. The other thing that I think is really cool about this is you can serve a population and adjust your model based off of where you're located. So, if you want to serve an underserved population, you want to be something that is a little bit more basic, you could serve a Medicaid population, which is what I do in my facilities, and we're very successful and we get good reimbursement rates. We have done $6,000 per room, per bed, basically, and I'll link a video up
00:09:17 - 00:10:04
above so you can watch a little bit about that and how those things work. But you can do that with Medicaid. Now, Medicaid adds some extra complexity. There's some extra things in there that you want to be aware of as you're getting into it. But Medicaid as a whole is something that that you should be paying attention to. Or, hey, maybe we want to be private pay only. We don't want to deal with Medicaid. That's totally fine. Or maybe we want to cater to some high-end people. Some of my
00:09:40 - 00:10:34
students have been charging 15 to $20,000 per month for a bed in assisted living. So, these rates are possible. It's just it kind of depends on the group that you want to serve and then you can kind of cater to them which is really cool and you can do it inside of whatever house. Like it doesn't necessarily matter as long as you go through the process of getting licensed. I mean you could do an unlicensed facility as well. I highly recommend going the licensed route. I think it's the better way to do it. It's going to
00:10:07 - 00:10:54
stabilize you for the long term. uh forces you to kind of do things like policies and procedures that are going to really stabilize your business. There's a bunch of good things about going the license route. Going to be a little bit more uh complicated, a little bit more expensive, but I think it's the best way for most people to go because of the way that it's going to help you be successful. But regardless of it, you're going to be able to create good income streams and then you always have
00:10:31 - 00:11:23
the fall back to, hey, I could go to Medicaid and there's going to be a huge demand for that population. And just incredible. There are some high margins in this business and that is going to support your growth as well because as you get into this and you're like, "Oh man, I get good high margins. I can put a little bit of that money away. It's kind of the burr strategy, but for assisted living, if you'd like to learn a little bit more about that or like me to do a video on the burr strategy for
00:10:57 - 00:11:43
assisted living, just type in burr down below and we'll go through that. But basically, you can take those profits and you can reinvest it back into another property. And then you get high margins and you're taking that, you're doing another one. You're scaling the business. And it's actually really, really cool in the way that you're going to be able to get to where you want to be, creating time and financial freedom for yourself, having an incredible impact in the community, and also
00:11:20 - 00:12:11
creating a legacy for you, for your family, and for the families that you get to serve through running your business. It's really, really pretty cool. You are also going to be able to control the value that you are providing to your residents. Now, in traditional real estate, you're going to have your rentals. You're going to impact a family or some students or whatever group of people that you're working with, and it's pretty cool, right? Um, but those rentals are going to depend on
00:11:46 - 00:12:43
comparable sales. It's going to be kind of dictated by the market. In assisted living, your rates are based off of the care that you are providing, the performance of the care, the amount of care that a resident needs. And so it doesn't necessarily matter what the the place down the street is doing because that's not what you are doing in your facility. Doesn't matter what their rental rates are. It could a little bit, but it's it's far less important there. It's based off of what care are you
00:12:15 - 00:13:00
providing? What value are you providing individually to each resident? And this goes within your facility. You could have a resident in your home that's getting care for $3,000 per month because they don't need a lot of care. They just need somewhere to live. And you could have somebody that needs a ton of cares and they're $8,000 per month. Like you can have that gamut inside of your own facility because it is based off of the care needs of the resident and if you are meeting those needs,
00:12:37 - 00:13:24
which is really cool, right? So you can just kind of spread this out a little bit and look at what population do I want to serve? How many staff do I want to have? If we do more care, we're going to need more staff. Are we able to handle that? Is it going to justify it? How can we adjust our business model? And you get to make those decisions all within your own little home. It's this kind of cool little ecosystem that you have in there that you don't get in traditional real estate. So, that's
00:13:01 - 00:13:58
something that's pretty awesome. Your improved census is also going to increase the valuation. Uh, increases your income, increases the value of the home. Uh if you ever want to sell these things, then you have some really good built-in processes, which is great for people that want to buy a business. You have instant income for people that are jumping into this. There's some incredible benefits to this that create extra value for an exit strategy that you don't always get when you are doing
00:13:29 - 00:14:28
single family rentals in assisted living. And the systems that you are creating are not only creating value for your business, but they are directly impacting your ability to be profitable. And something that's really cool about assisted living if you go the licensed facility route is the process of creating your policies and procedures is a part of getting your facility license. So what a lot of businesses struggle with is creating those processes and procedures and the SOPs, the standard operating procedures so that they can
00:13:59 - 00:14:48
have a successful business. It's kind of baked into the the beginning of your business and helping you build your foundation so that from day one you already have these things and now you just have to kind of carry it out. And if you take that process of building your policies and procedures seriously, you can actually create something that is just like your full toolkit for how you're going to run your business and how you're going to be profitable. And that is going to allow you to charge
00:14:23 - 00:15:12
more, to create more value, to make your business worth more money if you want to sell it on the back end. and it just improves everything. So, it's just like is like this perfect storm. It's really, really cool what you get in there and that's going to create equity faster, create more cash flow. You should be doing these types of things in any business that you're in. And it's kind of forced upon you in assisted living, which is awesome. Like, it's a great opportunity. So, take advantage of it.
00:14:47 - 00:15:42
It's really cool. But I will caution you because assisted living is not for everybody. It requires operational thinking. When you're in traditional real estate, I mean, you can fumble things around. You could hire a property manager. They can kind of take care of those things for you. You're shifting yourself from that landlord type of mindset over to an operator type of mindset where you are running the business. You are in charge of hiring the right people and you can delegate some of this stuff out to certain staff
00:15:15 - 00:16:12
members. That's what we do. I live in Utah. I've operated in Colorado. I operate in Idaho right now. So, I do this out of state. I am not at the facilities all day every day like at all. But a lot of that comes with I've found and hired good people to run the business for me. But it still takes me thinking as more of an operator, as a business owner, uh, type of a thing, being much more strategic, making sure we have plans that are going to allow us to be successful because I know that
00:15:44 - 00:16:36
when I do that, it allows me to further expand and grow and get us to where we want to be. And so, this is a bit of a shift for a lot of people. the systems that you are putting into your home are going to matter a whole lot more than just like the finishes. Like if you're fixing, flipping, you're you're turning something into it, you're doing single family rentals, you want it to look nice because that's going to look good when you post it on a website to bring people in to rent the home, right? Those things
00:16:10 - 00:17:05
aren't nearly as important in assisted living. Yes, you want it to look nice. You need it to look clean. Those are big components, but people are paying more for the care and the people that they get to interact with and the way that the building runs. And so the systems that you create are creating much more value. They are much more important than those high-end finishes. Unless you're charging $20,000 a month, like some of my students do, then you need to be really focused in on having good solid
00:16:38 - 00:17:33
systems. That's more important than anything else. your staff and your leadership style are going to create a huge difference. They are so critical to your success as a business. and following those rules and regulations also are going to require being able to work within a structured environment and to be disciplined because you will not only need to have those when you get the license, but you're going to have surveys and there's going to be experiences where you need to have some
00:17:05 - 00:17:59
of these things in place and understand, hey, I've got to have this operational mindset or we could get dinged and have fines for thousands of dollars or get our license revoked. And so, you have to do these things. It's not that hard. I will say that, but you do have to keep that in mind that before you jump into this, there's a lot more involved than just like slapping a for rent sign on it and making sure the house is clean and it has good photos, right? There's a lot that goes into this. And if that scares
00:17:32 - 00:18:25
you, it's probably not a good fit for you. But I do have a process that helps you understand, hey, is this going to work for me or not? I call it my focus framework. Um, focus is an acronym. and it stands for foundation first, optimal property selection, capital and funding, understanding the rules and regulations and and a strategic launch. And when you do those things, you're going to find that you can go from, go, I don't know how to do this. I don't even know where to get started to now I have a business
00:17:59 - 00:18:45
that's making me tens of thousands of dollars per month and everything is great. And if that's something that like excites you and you want to get into this, then come join me. uh type in roadmap in the comments below and I'll get you a link to our next roadmap challenge. It is a live coaching experience. I would love to have you there. It's so much fun to get in there. If you're in the VIP, you can ask me whatever questions, but we go through some of the basics on how to get you
00:18:22 - 00:19:13
started in assisted living so you make sure that this is a good fit for you before you jump all the way in and start moving forward with it. because I want you to have the support and the guidance that you need so you can be successful, have a profitable business, and just, you know, have clarity, have confidence that you are moving in the right direction. That's what I'm all about is helping people like you do that. And if you're like, "Hey man, I'd love to work with this guy, but I'm not sure which of
00:18:47 - 00:19:34
his programs is the best fit." Take the quiz, aliquiz.com. We'll have a QR code for you down there in the bottom corner. Just scan that. Go to aliquiz.com. Do that. Takes you 30 seconds to see which of my programs is the best fit for you. But like don't just take the quiz and be like, "Oh yeah, cool. I got this one. That's a cool sounding program. Like you got to take action, man. Like I'm going to be blunt with you. If you don't take action, you're not going to make
00:19:11 - 00:19:52
progress." You're going to sit there. You're going to spin your wheels. You're going to be in this spot where you're just like, "Ah, man. It'd be really cool if I could reach these investment goals. It would be really cool if I could have an impact on the community. If I could leave a legacy for my family." But you're not going to take action. and you're not going to have somebody help you along the path. Whether it's me or somebody else, I don't care. But you
00:19:31 - 00:20:18
need somebody to help you out through the process. And you've got to take action. You've got to start moving. Cuz if you don't, you're just going to sit on your thumbs all day long. You're never going to make progress. And I don't want that for you. I want you to reach your goals. I want to push you. I want to help you out and help you get to where you want to be. So take the quiz. Go to roadmapchallenge.com. Would love to see you there in the next roadmap challenge. And if you found this
00:19:55 - 00:20:48
video helpful, make sure you like the video, subscribe, ring the bell, do all those things so you get notified every time we put out content cuz we go live on Tuesdays. We put out content on Thursdays. All designed to help you make progress to know if assisted living is the right fit for you. And it's not the right fit for everybody, but if it is for you, start taking action, start moving forward. It's going to help you level up and, you know, reach these incredible goals that you have. Are you
00:20:21 - 00:21:00
curious about assisted living, but you're not sure how to get started? At Assisted Living Investing, I help first-time assisted living entrepreneurs launch profitable, purpose-driven businesses, creating prosperity, purpose, and peace in their lives. I love helping and coaching people. I'd love to help you. Yeah, just type in road map down below. We'll get you a link to it, and we'll see you in the next roadap challenge. And remember, it doesn't take a lot, just a little bit.
00:20:40 - 00:21:00
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.
Download Your FREE Calculator
Stay connected with news and updates!
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.
Don't worry, your information will not be shared.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.