Assisted living: its time is coming.

Assisted living facilities are poised for take off, and real estate developers are already taking advantage of the movement.

The parents of baby boomers - now moving into their late 70s and early 80s - will soon be renting and buying in a whole new area of the real estate business. The movement is born of increased life spans and healthier, wealthier seniors. And the quality of life that assisted living facilities are aiming to improve is born of the independence and standards of choice that are the legacy of the boomers themselves.

Residential real estate for the elderly has never been so wide open. The trend toward "assisted living" facilities is now more than a decade old, with facilities ranging in number of units from the single digits to several thousand, and with acreage ranging from one quarter to hundreds.

The "residential model" is the cornerstone of assisted living health care, and its warm and fuzzy nature - coupled with the sheer …