Nursing Home Finance - Make Sure You Have What It Takes

If you are looking for nursing home finance, it is possible that you are already in the nursing home business and seeking to expand.  On the other hand, you may be a newcomer to the business and hoping to buy your first nursing home.

If you are a newcomer, you may not have realised that the nursing home business isn’t quite as straightforward as other types of business.   Before applying for your nursing home finance, there are some things you need to be aware of.

1. First of all, consider whether you are the right sort of person to run this kind of business.  Remember that it’s not a business with precise opening hours like a pub or shop – it’s 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  You do need an interest in working with people, and in this specific client group.  Many people who go into the nursing home business are doctors or nurses who are interested in a business venture.
2. If you are sure that you want to start in the nursing home business, you are far better advised to purchase an existing business, rather than try to convert a property and start a nursing home from scratch.  This might be a profitable venture once you have gained the experience and want to expand.  However, for a newcomer it would be a nightmare.  For a start, you would need a development loan for the conversion, and there would almost certainly be all sorts of unexpected snags with the original property.  On top of this, there are all manner of stringent structural regulations that a building has to comply with before it can be accepted as a nursing home – room size, safety factors, disabled access, lifts etc.  It would be hard for you as a newcomer to look at a potential property and assess how it would convert to meet the regulations.  You would almost certainly find you had bitten off more than you could chew.
3. Once you have found a suitable business that is for sale, the first thing you must do is look at the accounts for the last three years or so – or preferably get an accountant to do it.  If the seller won’t show you the accounts, walk away.  The accounts will show you the potential profitability of the business.  Of course, when you apply for your nursing home finance, the lenders will want to see this information.  If the business is clearly in decline, there is no point in wasting time applying for the finance.
4. If you don’t have the qualifications to register yourself as a care manager, you will have to employ a qualified person to do this job.  This will have implications for the size of the building as there will need to be adequate accommodation for both yourself and the manager to be resident.  You may decide that as the owner you don’t want to be resident.  If you aren’t resident, remember that you still have the ultimate responsibility, so you need to be contactable 24/7, and able to be there quickly in case of emergency.

When you apply for your nursing home finance, the lenders will want to satisfy themselves that you have thought all these things through.  They are all important for the success of your business and hence for the security of the loan!  Of course, they will also check that the property meets all the regulations and minimum care standards.

Recent changes in regulations have made life more difficult for nursing home owners and put a lot of people off. This means the market is wide open.  If you have what it takes, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to run a very successful business.

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