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As I work on my annual story in regards to the developments I see upcoming in 2026, I needed to take a second to investigate 2025 and the way it has formed the senior residing business. It was a yr stuffed with optimism for senior residing corporations, although challenges proceed to cloud their certainty about what comes subsequent.
On the one hand, rising demand continues to push common senior residing occupancy greater. New know-how additionally helps senior residing operators attain their prospects in new methods, and altering generational preferences are altering operators’ messaging. And a brand new class of leaders has taken the reins at corporations throughout the business, with artistic concepts in regards to the future.
The business is grappling with a longer-term disaster even because it makes probably the most of demand will increase now. Regardless of hopes that circumstances would flip favorable in 2025, growth remained frozen this yr with 60% of the 140 markets NIC MAP tracks recording no new senior residing growth tasks underway. As I’ve written earlier than, the senior residing business doesn’t need to discover itself ready the place considerably each unit is full and waitlists are rising with the opening of latest communities nonetheless years away. Information reveals that the boomers are searching for senior housing, and I feel they’ll discover one thing they need sooner moderately than later whether or not senior residing operators have room for them or not.
Equally to how demand and growth signify each a chance and a problem forward, so too does new know-how utilized in digital advertising. As senior residing prospects embrace generative language fashions like ChatGPT and on-line search “reply engines,” operators should change their methods to achieve new prospects.
And whereas a new class of leaders is pushing the senior residing business to think about new concepts, that ongoing transition between the business’s pioneers and its newer leaders is its personal hurdle. That isn’t to say these aren’t gifted leaders worthy of their roles, however moderately that any such transition doesn’t occur in a single day.
On this members-only SHN+ Replace, I analyze latest market forces shaping the senior residing business forward of the brand new yr, together with:
- How a scarcity of latest growth formed the business this yr
- New adjustments in advertising strategies and messaging
- Leaders bringing new philosophies and taking the reins from veterans
Improvement virtually nonexistent whereas demand surged
In my opinion, the largest power shaping the senior residing business in 2025 was the cross-current of rising demand and comparatively frozen new growth.
In line with NIC knowledge that we’ve shared over the previous 12 months, senior residing unit absorption and demand are excessive, whereas the speed of latest growth is something however. Eight of the 31 major markets that NIC tracks skilled damaging stock progress between the third quarter of 2022 and the identical interval this yr.
In the meantime, the infant boomers moved into senior housing in “file numbers,” based on NIC knowledge. The info reveals that for each 10 new models that opened in any given market, 31 have been occupied and absorbed this yr.
However the present state of mission timelines, price of land and cautiousness from capital suppliers has up to now forestalled the type of new building wanted to meet up with demand. Because of this, the variety of folks aged 75 and over is projected to eclipse annual stock progress by way of 2030.
The frozen state of latest growth was a sizzling matter at our BUILD convention this yr. I feel the phrases “able to develop, struggling to construct” from NIC Senior Principal Omar Zahraoui on stage on the occasion describe the state of the business in 2025 properly. As progress through growth remained arduous to pencil out, senior residing house owners and buyers flocked to smaller M&A offers.
I imagine that progress will overtake different challenges within the years forward because the business struggles to beat its widening funding hole. For some corporations, that actuality is already right here right now.
Senior residing digital advertising is altering
The rise of reply engines, coupled with the preferences of the senior residing business’s latest prospects, meant massive adjustments for senior residing entrepreneurs in 2025.
Final month, I lined how senior residing referral large A Place for Mother is pivoting its advertising technique in favor of on-line reply engines like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Whereas APFM beforehand sought to prioritize search engine marketing and find yourself in natural search lists, the corporate now believes that reply engines and different AI-powered instruments have outdated conventional search engines like google and yahoo – and the information backs that notion up.
“It’s nice to have a web site, however who’s going to this web site now and the way are they going to be studying about what’s in your web site?” APFM CEO Tatyana Zlotsky stated. “It’s all about determining the right way to get into the ‘solutions’ of the LLMs that persons are already utilizing for his or her analysis as an alternative of Google.”
Making issues more durable, the senior residing story itself must evolve as shortly because the tech that leads residents to operators. The senior residing worth proposition nonetheless rests on issues like meals, enjoyable and leisure, which isn’t a lot totally different from the story the business advised greater than 70 years in the past, Dr. Joe Coughlin, director of MIT AgeLab, stated throughout a panel on the Fall NIC Convention.
“Even the very best, most worthwhile, high-margin companies in senior housing proper now are persevering with the story that was created within the late ‘50s,” Coughlin stated. “We actually have much better structure … however we haven’t created a story that’s extra aspirational.”
On the similar time, I do take into consideration the pivot that some suppliers have made towards wellness-focused fashions that prioritize a multi-faceted strategy to growing old that goes far past the “cruise ship on land” framework. However I agree with Coughlin’s level that the business has not basically altered the general public notion of senior residing communities as largely undesirable locations to stay.
From strategies to messaging, it’s clear to me that senior residing advertising is altering with the arrival of the boomers, and operators can’t solely depend on their previous strategies to fill their communities.
Altering of the guard is at hand
A number of senior residing operators up to now yr introduced new leaders on the helm. In actual fact, Brookdale Senior Dwelling (NYSE: BKD), Civitas Senior Dwelling and Maplewood Senior Dwelling have all named new prime leaders since October. One other well-known operator, Watermark Retirement Communities, named a brand new CEO in April. What’s driving these CEO transitions is a necessity to show the web page from the previous to the long run and reply to new challenges and alternatives with new concepts.
In line with a December report from Challenger, Grey & Christmas, the most typical purpose cited for CEO departures in October of 2025 was “stepping down,” signaling “deliberate successions, strategic transitions, or strikes into advisory or board roles.”
It’s no shock to me that outstanding senior residing organizations named new CEOs in 2025 as senior residing grew extra sophisticated. As I wrote final yr, the senior residing business is dropping its most seasoned leaders simply when their experience is required most. That necessitates a cautious handoff, as senior residing operator Silverado did by naming an interim CEO this yr.
These corporations are bullish on their management transitions however the brand new leaders face some daunting challenges. If a pattern shaping 2025 was the passing of the baton, the take a look at in 2026 shall be how far and quick the brand new leaders can run. Brookdale is probably the most dramatic living proof. CEO Nick Stengle has launched a extra regionalized construction and is bullish on key indicators, however I’m desperate to see if he brings even bolder concepts and initiatives to the nation’s largest supplier within the yr to come back. Backside line, the altering of the guard is a problem – and a chance – that many extra corporations will bear within the years to come back.
