Residential Assisted Living Academy in Residence

[Dan Raphael]

Hello. There have been several threads asking if anyone has attended the Residential Assisted Living Academy in person. I have seen all manner of responses to include “I saw the You Tube videos” to “I took the online course.” It seems that nobody has ever answered that they have indeed gone to take the 3 day course. This seems so weird because they run several of these a year.

If anyone has gone to one of the RAL Academy in-residence sessions, would you please chime in? I would love to hear your experience with it. One question I have in particular is how much time in advance of setting up a Residential Assisted Living property one should take the course. Thanks for the help!

[Jeff Morelock]

One thing to remember with ALFs is that you're pretty much leaving the real estate business and entering into the health care field, so education is very important. I am not familiar with the Residential Assisted Living Academy, but I can answer your timeline question. 

First it depends on the state. I am in Florida and it takes about a year to convert a house and get it licensed. That does not include hiring and filling your ALF with happy residents, so you may want to call your state's agency that regulates the industry and ask if they give you an average time frame. 

One more thing... if you only have a limited "education" budget for now, I'd suggest taking whatever course your state requires to get an Assisted Living Facility Administrator, even if you don't plan to run day to day operations at your ALF. You need to know your state's laws and regulations in order to "manage" the administrator you hire.

Sometimes its easier just to buy a small facility that is already up and running.