Can You Negotiate Cost With a Senior Living Community?

You just went on your first tour of a Senior Living Community and wow! You had no idea how much Senior living costs and all that work you put into your financial spreadsheet? Out the window! This week, we’re talking negotiations.

Let’s be honest, no one wants to think or talk about aging, needing care or moving from their home. It’s no surprise that most don’t know that there are ways to save money when it comes to Senior living communities. Let’s look at the costs:

The apartment rent
The care costs
The one time community fee

Let’s start by looking at the rent. Communities calculate these charges differently. Some use real estate pricing and some don’t. For example, an apartment next to the elevator might be more expensive than the same square footage in a different area of the building. You can ask if there’s an apartment of the same size or even a little smaller that would be less expensive in order to save some money. You can also ask to be on the wait list for that smaller less expensive apartment.

So what about care costs? This is another area where you can control some of the cost… the cost is the cost… but you can decide to take on some of the care yourself. So you may decide to manage the medications or you may decide to give that weekly shower. You absolutely have the right to provide some of the care. Just to note, this is not something you can go back and forth on. For example, you can’t ask the community to cover for you while you go on vacation. You would need to hire in home care for that. Make sure that this is an area you’re actually able and willing to accommodate. Many families prefer to enjoy their time with their loved ones and have the community provide all the care, especially since many families have already been providing the care for some time… but it is an area where you can save money.

This brings us to the community fee. This is a one time fee that goes back into the community’s programming, building, turning apartments etc. This fee varies widely. We have seen this fee start at $1000 and go all the way up to $50,000 and more. But this is an area where you can usually negotiate either a smaller fee altogether or divide the fee over a few months.

One thing last thing we need to talk about specials offered by communities. Many communities will run specials on rent and community fees if they have several openings, so timing can also help you save money. If you start your search early so that your timing is flexible, this can help you get a better deal.

So getting creative about location, care and timing can really help you reduce cost and hopefully this will help make things a little more doable!

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