Assess Competitors

Before you open a retirement housing business within your community, it's a good idea to determine how strong the competition is. Use the link below to generate a list of competitors nearby. After following the link, enter your city, state and zip code to get a list of retirement housing businesses in your area.

• Get a List of Nearby Retirement Housing Businesses

Is the local market large enough to support another retirement housing business? If not, you had better be sure that you are doing things much better than the competition.

Talk to People Who Are Already in the Business

As part of your due diligence on opening a retirement housing business, you really ought to learn from folks who are already in business. It's very unlikely that the local competition will talk to you. It'd be crazy for them to teach you the business.

However, a fellow entrepreneur who has started a retirement housing business in a location that is not competitive to you will be much more likely to talk with you, after they realize you reside far away from them and won't be stealing their local customers. In fact, they are often very willing to share startup advice with you. In my experience, you may have to call ten business owners in order to find one who is willing to share his wisdom with you.

How would you find a retirement housing business owner in another community?

It's easy. Here's a link you can use to find a mentor outside of your area.

• Find Your Retirement Housing Business Mentor

Don't Rule Out Franchising

If you are launching your first business venture, you should evaluate leveraging the success of an established franchise network.

Before starting a retirement housing business, you ought to check out whether franchise opportunities in your space might be worth investigating.

The link below gives you access to our franchise directory so you can see if there's a franchise opportunity for you. You might even find something that points you in a completely different direction.

• Franchise Businesses