Thinking about buying an Assisted Living Facility... (attorney, corp, non-profit)

[ProudMom0731]

Hello everyone !!!

My husband and I are both nurses and looking to take over an exisiting 6 patient assisted living facility. Wondered if anyone on this thread owned one.
We know you have to married to it. Not sure it will be worth it for us. We want to continue to work full-time, so we would have to hire CNAS to care for the patients. If anyone can give some genuine advice, we would welcome it with open arms !!!

Thanks
Julie

[christina0001]

I've worked with seniors in healthcare for 5 years now. I can't say anything about owning an assisted living, but I think in general healthcare and healthcare related to seniors is already a moneymaker and will only become moreso as time passes. In many areas assisted living beds are hard to come by, which makes them quite desireable.

[StealthRabbit]

I don't own one yet, but B-i-L has built / staffed / sold ~ 5; 50-75 bed units and is currently building 2 more. It is very lucrative to develop a profitable operation from scratch and sell it to a corporate operator, but this requires experience.

I would recommend working for / partnering with a very knowledgeable person. State regs / support vary greatly. It will be a full time job for administration and another fulltime job for operation. I might look at running one side or the other. I would not recommend trying to do this as a side business unless you have significant help, and latitude for crisis managment. There are many families from eastern europe running adult care homes of the size you mentioned in our area. They have a lot of $$$ backing, plus a big infrastructure of available care providers (they have a local sub culture of folks needing work).

There is tremendous need, satisfaction and profit in this area, just be very diligent in your research, and don't trust someone else's numbers. Get a very good accountant, attorney, and adviser, and most importantly do it all under a corporate shield or LLC to protect your assets.

[ProudMom0731]

janb

Thanks for your knowledge and input... You brought up some very good points I hadn't thought of. It is a lot to take on.
You mentioned not owning one yet ... Are you in the process of buying a new facility or an existing one.

[ProudMom0731]

cristina0001
You are right, that's one of the reasons we are thinking of buying this ALF.
Thanks for your input...

[StealthRabbit]

We will be investing the 'properties / facilities' side, as I don't feel competent to tackle the operations, yet. I am in school again after a 30 yr career, non-related, but also did 30+ yrs of elder care for my dad... I plan to do an internship in operations work with a corporate ALF firm. I am not keen on the corp ownerships and have been most impressed with non-profit land trusts and some of the rural Good Samaritan facilities.

Our ultimate personal goal is owning an 'aging-in place' facility / village complete with apartment to skilled care, and community gardens, workshop, and coffee shop for an integrated community. (fields with cows and sheep for folks to watch, help too, especially in springtime). We have seen very few of these places, but they are around, and the livability is superb.

I really dislike the facilities that cause couples to have to split up when level of care of one exceeds the 'assisted' level. I have attended to the hospice needs of a few friends this year and it was difficult knowing that they were rushed into hospice, due to lack of facilities to give them more thorough care. There are some tough ethical issues, and dealing with the 'adult' kids is a challenge...(who often don't know the options, and really don't want to be bothered). We often find ourselves being surrogate 'kids' to seniors who don't trust or even have contact with their own kids, and certainly cannot talk about these issues... I really enjoy the 'planning' tasks and took an 'elder law' course last year. It helps that I'm a 'schemer' (there has got to be a way to accomplish stuff, you just have to dig it up, or invent it). I can work within the rules, its just getting the straight answer on the rules that is tough.

[ALF001]

Interested in buying or investing in an Assisted Living Facility contact assistedlvng@gmail.com

[Leonora Tisdale]

Appreciation in favor of your information and contribution...
You bring up a quantity of very good points I hadn't consideration of. It is a bunch to receive on.
You mentioned not owning one until now ...
Are you during the procedure of buying a new ability or an existing one.

[energygrrl]

I am an R.N. and also interested in learning how to leverage my money.
This sounds like something I would be interested in.
Can anyone share any more about how to get into this?
Thank you

[golfgod]

I don't know much about the business side, although my MIL is in one, but 6 sounds way to small to be profitable. Every staff dollar you have to spend is being amortized against only 6 revenue streams. That's kitchen, food servers, janitorial, nursing, maintenance etc. It seems to me that would be like opening a restaurant that only sells items that cost less than one dollar.

Tread carefully.

golfgod