What belongs on an assisted living page?

Two blocks that should stay separate: the apartment and the service package. The apartment covers the floor plan, living space per room, storey, lift, step-free access with measurements, outdoor area with orientation and photos of this exact apartment. The service package covers the basic services included, the availability of the emergency call system, the communal rooms, the weekly plan and contacts with names and direct lines. Together the two make up one detail page per apartment type, ending in a viewing appointment or the waiting list.

How do you present assisted living costs properly?

In three blocks. First the rent with service and heating costs, as in any tenancy. Second the monthly care flat rate, together with the list of basic services it covers. Third the optionally bookable extra services, priced individually. On top of that belong the insurance benefits that lower the personal contribution, such as the relief amount of 131 euros per month (Sec. 45b SGB XI) and the home emergency call system covered at 27.00 euros net per month (price agreement of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds under Sec. 78 SGB XI). Extra costs that become visible too late are the most frequently named reason for abandonment online, with 40 per cent of surveyed online shoppers naming extra costs that are too high (Baymard Institute).

What do we write about increasing care needs?

A section of its own with three answers: which additional services are possible in-house, from what point a home care service joins in, and where the line to a different form of housing runs. Legally, the contract can be adjusted when care or support needs change, with the additional services and the increased fee set out in a written comparison (Sec. 8 WBVG). For orientation, name orders of magnitude, such as up to 1,497 euros per month as home care benefits in kind at care level 3 (Sec. 36 SGB XI).

Does every apartment type really need its own page?

Per type, not per individual apartment. If a building has five floor plan types, five detail pages with their own address, title and floor plan are enough; the individual apartments then differ only in storey, orientation and availability. This layout has two advantages: families can compare offers directly, and search engines find concrete content instead of a general page about living in old age. The upkeep stays manageable because typically only availability changes.

How does a waiting list replace the contact form?

It does not replace it entirely, it adds the case that occurs most often in assisted living: nothing is free right now. Instead of a general form, the family registers with their preferred type, time horizon and preferred contact route and receives the promise of a response as soon as a suitable apartment becomes available. That keeps the contact alive over months in which nothing else happens, and the provider gains a reliable basis for occupancy planning instead of a collection of loose phone notes.

Assisted Living Websites: Show Apartments and Services

Q: Does the WBVG apply to assisted living?

That depends on the linkage. If living space and care are compulsorily connected, for example because the tenancy agreement only comes about together with the care contract, the Residential and Care Contracts Act applies (Sec. 1 WBVG). If, by contrast, the contract covers the apartment plus general support services only, such as an emergency call service or referral to care, ordinary tenancy law continues to apply (Sec. 1 para. 2 WBVG). The former 20 per cent threshold stems from the old Homes Act. The website should state in one sentence which model applies.

In short and in plain language

In assisted living, people look for a flat and for help in one. This post shows how to present both on your website.

Each type of flat can get its own page. It shows the floor plan, size, floor and real photos.

Show rent, care and extras apart. Then families see what they pay for. The post also explains what can be on the page before a contract.

Families can book a viewing online. This often helps more than a plain form.

We can help you with this.

Anyone looking for an assisted living apartment compares something different from a home care service. It is not about a service that arrives at fixed times, but about two things at once: a specific living space with square metres, floor and balcony, and a service package that is paid for every month. In December 2023, around 5.69 million people in Germany were in need of care, 86 per cent of them cared for at home (Federal Statistical Office), and by the mid-2030s the number of people aged 67 and over will grow to at least 20.1 million (Federal Statistical Office). Demand for housing between the family home and the nursing home is rising accordingly. On many websites, however, apartment and service blur into a single block of prose: a page headed Assisted Living, a stock photo with an armchair and a houseplant, three sentences about safety in old age, a phone number. Neither a floor plan nor a reliable breakdown of the monthly costs is anywhere to be found. This article shows how to present both halves of the offer separately and comprehensibly: the apartment as an apartment, the service package as a service package.

Key takeaways

In assisted living, prospects compare two things at once: a specific living space and a monthly service package. Most websites lack exactly this separation, even though the decision rests on it.
Every apartment type deserves its own detail page with a floor plan, living space, floor, lift, step-free access, balcony and photos of the real apartment instead of one collective page with stock imagery.
Rent, care flat rate and optional extra services belong in separate line items. Costs that only become visible late are the most frequently named reason for abandonment online: 40 per cent of surveyed shoppers name extra costs that are too high (Baymard Institute).
The German Residential and Care Contracts Act requires information in text form before the contract is signed, covering location, fittings, the specific living space and the fees (Sec. 3 WBVG). The website is the right place to prepare these details.
Relatives decide over a period of months. A viewing appointment with a date and a waiting list with a promised call back go further than an anonymous contact form at the bottom of the page.

Why assisted living is compared differently

With a home care service, the family asks: does someone come, when do they come, what does a visit cost. With assisted living, a different question is on the table: does this apartment fit, and what do we get for the monthly flat rate? This is a housing decision with a service attached, and it is examined as such. Living space, layout, floor, lift, thresholds, bathroom, balcony, orientation, storage room, cellar, parking space: these are the features anyone renting an apartment looks for, at 82 as much as at 32. If your own service page for assisted living only writes about safety, community and quality of life, it answers half the question. The other half, the living space itself, stays invisible, and what is invisible cannot be compared.

Then there is the timeline. Day care is often searched for and booked within a few days; there, the free place available today is what counts, as the article on the day care website with free places describes. In assisted living, by contrast, the decision stretches over months: first the thought takes shape, then siblings and grandchildren join in, then the family property is valued, then offers are compared, viewed and finally signed. The website accompanies this long path. It is visited repeatedly, often by different people on different devices, and it should deliver the same reliable details on every visit. Providers who hand out prices or availability by phone only lose touch during this phase, because families keep a comparison table in the background and can only enter what they find in writing.

Key figures at a glance

5.69 million people in need of care in Germany in December 2023, 86 per cent of them cared for at home (Federal Statistical Office). By the mid-2030s the number of people aged 67 and over rises to at least 20.1 million (Federal Statistical Office). Extra costs that become visible too late are the most frequently named reason for abandonment online: 40 per cent of surveyed online shoppers name them (Baymard Institute). The relief amount stands at 131 euros per month (Sec. 45b SGB XI), and the payment for a home emergency call system as a care aid at 27.00 euros net per month (price agreement of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds under Sec. 78 SGB XI).

One page per apartment type

A collective page cannot deliver this. Anyone with three or five floor plan types in the building needs three or five detail pages, each with its own address, its own page title and its own floor plan. This works in two directions: relatives can compare individual apartments with one another and with offers from other providers, and search engines get something concrete to index instead of a general page about living in old age. On a properly built care website, such a detail page is not a special case but a reusable module: header with the type designation, data block, floor plan, image gallery, cost block, availability note, appointment booking. Because a large share of relatives research in the evening on a smartphone, this structure has to work on small screens first; what matters there is covered in the article on mobile presentation for relatives. Six details carry a page like this.

Floor plan with measurements

A scaled floor plan with room labels and doors answers in seconds what would otherwise be asked ten times over: does the existing bed fit, is the chest of drawers in the way, how does the bathroom sit relative to the bedroom.

Living space and layout

Square metres per room, not just the total. A two-room apartment with 58 square metres and a narrow layout feels different from one with 52 square metres and a generous living area.

Floor and lift

Storey, number of steps to the entrance, lift available or not, door width of the cabin. For a walker or a wheelchair, this is where it is decided whether the apartment is an option at all.

Step-free access in detail

Level-access shower, door widths, turning areas, no step onto the balcony. Vague wording such as senior-friendly helps little, while verifiable measurements in centimetres help a great deal.

Balcony, terrace, orientation

Whether there is an outdoor space, how large it is and which way it faces is no minor detail for people who spend much of their time at home. Compass direction and view therefore belong in the data block.

Photos of the real apartment

Pictures of this exact apartment, empty and in daylight, from two or three angles per room. A stock photo from an image library tends to produce disappointment at the viewing appointment.

Separating rent, care and extra services

The second blind spot is cost. Many websites either name no price at all or a single sum that gives no clue as to what it includes. Yet the structure in assisted living is clearly threefold: the rent for the apartment, a monthly care flat rate for the basic services, and the optionally bookable extra services such as lunch, laundry, cleaning or home care. Listing these three blocks separately on the website removes the family's greatest uncertainty. Mixing them loses the family: extra costs that become visible too late are the most frequently named reason for abandonment in the online checkout process once mere browsing is set aside: 40 per cent of surveyed online shoppers name extra costs that are too high (Baymard Institute). For the personal contribution towards care services, a calculation path on the page pays off as well, as described in the article on the care cost calculator on the website.

List base rent, service charges and heating costs separately as in any tenancy, so the apartment stays comparable with other apartments
Pair the care flat rate with a list of the basic services it includes: availability, emergency call standby, advice, referral, activities
Name extra services individually with a price, for example lunch per portion, laundry per basket, apartment cleaning per visit, escort per hour
Mark care services as a separate contract, concluded with a care service and billed through the long-term care insurance fund
Name the insurance benefits that lower the personal contribution: the relief amount of 131 euros per month (Sec. 45b SGB XI) and the home emergency call system covered at 27.00 euros net per month (price agreement of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds under Sec. 78 SGB XI)
Disclose one-off items: deposit, cooperative share and subsidies for measures improving the living environment of up to 4,180 euros per measure (Sec. 40 para. 4 SGB XI)

WBVG: what belongs on the table before the contract

Whether the Residential and Care Contracts Act applies to an offer hinges on a single question: are living space and care compulsorily linked? If the tenancy agreement is only concluded when a care contract is signed alongside it, or if one contract depends on the other, the WBVG applies (Sec. 1 WBVG). If, however, the contract covers the apartment plus general support services only, such as an emergency call service, referral to care or domestic help, ordinary tenancy law continues to govern (Sec. 1 para. 2 WBVG). The 20 per cent threshold once in common use stems from the old Homes Act and no longer appears in the WBVG; what matters today is the substantive distinction. For the website this means: state on the apartment page which model applies in your case. That one sentence answers a question relatives would otherwise resolve with contradictory information from the internet. How such mandatory details combine with the imprint and advertising law is covered in the article on the legally compliant care website.

Where the WBVG applies, a concrete duty follows: the provider must inform the consumer in good time before the contract is concluded, in text form and in comprehensible language, about the general range of services and about the services relevant to them, including the location and fittings of the building, the specific living space to be rented, the care and support services and the fees payable in each case (Sec. 3 WBVG). These details become part of the contractual basis, and any deviations must be separately marked in the contract (Sec. 6 WBVG). A website does not replace the pre-contractual information sheet, but it is the right place to prepare it: as a downloadable document per apartment type, complemented by the same content as a readable page. So that people with limited vision can use this page too, the usual requirement of a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for body text applies (WCAG 2.1), along with the rules of the Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG), applicable since 28 June 2025; the practical side is described in the article on accessible implementation.

When care needs increase

Hardly any question is asked so often at the viewing appointment and answered so rarely on websites: what happens if my mother needs more help than she does today? Behind it sits the worry about a second move at an age when moving is hard. The law knows the case: if care or support needs change, the contract can be adjusted, with the additional services and the correspondingly increased fee set out in a written comparison (Sec. 8 WBVG); fee increases require a changed basis of calculation and must be justified (Sec. 9 WBVG). On the website this deserves its own section with three answers: what can additionally be provided in-house, from what point a home care service is brought in, and where the line runs beyond which a different form of housing makes sense. Name the order of magnitude while you are at it: for care level 3, up to 1,497 euros per month are available as home care benefits in kind (Sec. 36 SGB XI). What content relatives expect beyond that is summarised in the article on the content that convinces relatives.

Building, emergency call and contacts

Show the communal rooms

Lounge, cafe, guest apartment, workshop, garden: photos and opening hours instead of a bare list. Anyone who sees where lunch is served understands the offer faster.

Explain the emergency call concretely

Who answers the call, how quickly is someone on site, what happens at night. The care insurance fund pays 27.00 euros net per month for it (price agreement of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds under Sec. 78 SGB XI).

Weekly plan of the house

A simple plan with exercise, singing circle, games afternoon and advice hours shows everyday life instead of marketing promises, and can be updated in a few minutes.

Contacts with names

Photo, first name, surname, role, direct line and consultation hours of the house management. A general info address feels distant for a decision of this weight.

Location and routes nearby

Distance to the bakery, pharmacy, GP practice, bus stop and church in walking minutes. For people without a car this is a central selection criterion.

Safety without drama

Describe door security, lighting, handrails and night standby factually. In assisted living, the language of fear tends to work less well than sober clarity.

Collective page or apartment page

Feature	One collective page for everything	One detail page per apartment type
Living space	General description, no floor plan	Floor plan, space per room, storey
Images	Stock photos from an image library	Photos of the real apartment in daylight
Costs	One sum from X, without a breakdown	Rent, flat rate and extras listed separately
Contract framework	Left open	Tenancy law or WBVG named
Comparability	Families keep their own notes	Details can be transferred directly
Findability	One page for all search terms	Own title and address per type
Next step	Contact form at the bottom	Viewing appointment with a date

The difference works on two levels. For the family, the effort drops because they can transfer details instead of having to ask for them. For the provider, the number of phone calls that begin with the same five questions drops, and the quality of enquiries rises, because it becomes clear in advance who will not be suited by the third floor without a lift. The prerequisite is that the images deliver what the text promises; why real photos rather than stock imagery tip the balance here is a topic in its own right. It also matters that an apartment page stays online while the apartment is occupied: it then shows the waiting list note instead of an appointment, and the family's comparison process does not break off.

Viewings and the waiting list

At the end of a good apartment page there is no anonymous contact form but an appointment. In assisted living, the viewing is the decisive step, and it can be arranged online just like a consultation: free time slots, choice of apartment, two or three questions about the situation, confirmation by email. What that looks like technically and organisationally is shown by online appointment booking and, with an eye on the team workflow, by the article on appointment booking for care consultations. If no suitable apartment is free, a second route is needed: a waiting list where relatives can register with their preferred type, time horizon and contact route, combined with the promise to get in touch as soon as something becomes available. In assisted living this list is the real occupancy management tool, because apartments rarely become free at short notice and even more rarely exactly when someone is looking.

These mistakes cost trust

Avoid price figures without a breakdown; a single sum raises more questions than it answers. Avoid stock photos of apartments that do not exist in this form in the building, because the viewing appointment exposes the gap immediately. Avoid wording such as senior-friendly or low-barrier without measurements, because it is indeterminate and of little help to wheelchair users. Avoid leaving availability unchanged for months; an apartment listed as free since last year damages the credibility of every other detail. And avoid making the contact form the only route when a large share of the target group would rather call.

Implementation in the first weeks

The build can be done in manageable steps without rebuilding the entire website. The order below prioritises by effect per effort: first the apartment pages with the hard data, then costs and the contract framework, then appointment and list, finally visibility and upkeep. For that last point, regional search matters most, because people who search on a smartphone for something nearby often want to visit or get in touch soon. How to put that into practice for care providers is described by the page on local SEO for care services and the article on regional visibility in the surrounding area.

Week 1: take stock of which apartment types exist and collect the floor plan, living space, storey, lift, thresholds and outdoor area for each type
Week 2: take photos of the real apartments in daylight, empty and tidy, from two or three angles per room
Week 3: create a separate page per apartment type, with a data block, floor plan, gallery and its own address
Week 4: set up the cost block and list rent, care flat rate and extra services separately, with extras priced individually
Week 5: name the contract framework, tenancy law or WBVG, and provide the pre-contractual information per type as a document (Sec. 3 WBVG)
Week 6: write the section on increasing care needs and anchor the cooperation with the care service within it
Week 7: set up online appointment booking for viewings and add the waiting list with a clear promise to respond
Week 8: check the loading time, a value below 2.5 seconds for the largest visible content counts as good (Google documentation), and anchor the upkeep of availability firmly in the team

The ongoing effort stays small once two things are settled: who changes availability, and who reviews prices once a quarter. Both belong in a fixed website maintenance routine, otherwise it is precisely the part relatives study most closely that goes stale. It also matters that domain, hosting and access credentials are held in the name of the provider so changes are possible without detours; the pitfalls are collected in the article who owns your care website. Anyone presenting further areas online alongside assisted living will find in the article on the hospice service website for volunteers and donations an example of a very different target group on the same technical basis. And if you are unsure how many apartment types can sensibly be separated, we can clarify that in a personal conversation based on your building.

Sources and Studies

This article draws on data from the Federal Statistical Office, the Baymard Institute and the German Residential and Care Contracts Act (WBVG), as well as on the rules of Book XI of the German Social Code (SGB XI), the Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (W3C). The figures cited refer to the state of the respective publication.

Marketing & occupancy

Multilingual Care Website: Reach More Relatives

Turkish-, Russian- and Arabic-speaking relatives search for care in their language. How care services win trust and enquiries with multilingual core pages.

12 min read

Law & data protection

ePA in care: what relatives want to know about access

The ePA in care: what the care service sees, who adds entries, how relatives object or act as representatives, and how a guide page answers these questions.

19 min read