The senior dwelling business has an issue: too many older adults assume that it’s unaffordable.
A part of the issue is that it merely is unaffordable for a lot of older adults. The senior dwelling business nonetheless hasn’t constructed an answer at scale for the tens of millions of people that will need and wish senior dwelling companies within the years to return with out a approach to afford it. However past the “Forgotten Center” drawback, even older grownup prospects of extra market-rate communities consider that senior dwelling is simply too expensive, at the very least in line with current survey knowledge.
Virtually 59% of respondents to a 2025 survey from Whittington Consulting stated they thought senior dwelling communities will not be inexpensive to them. Slightly below half stated they assume senior dwelling would value them “far more” than getting older in their very own houses.
Information exhibits that senior dwelling isn’t low cost and that prices for residents are rising yearly. And the uncomfortable reality is that senior dwelling suppliers “want to start accepting that our product isn’t inexpensive,” in line with Agemark Co-CEO Michael Pittore.
“Realistically, there may be solely cheaper and costlier,” Pittore instructed Senior Housing Information.
Quite than denying senior dwelling is pricey, Agemark and plenty of different operators – together with 12 Oaks Senior Dwelling, Precedence Life Care, Well being Dimensions Group, EverTrue, 2Life Communities and WesleyLife – are grappling with not solely the precise value of senior dwelling however its perceived value amongst residents.
In response, these firms have pivoted to methods that present the worth of what residents are shopping for versus staying at house. In addition they have doubled and tripled down on fashions that enhance affordability in month-to-month charges.
From ‘promoting items to explaining outcomes’
If senior dwelling operators can’t at all times deliver resident charges beneath a sure threshold, that doesn’t imply their companies aren’t inexpensive relative to what older adults are already paying whereas dwelling at house.
Prospects and their households are additionally already seemingly serious about prices earlier than they contact operators. Of the older adults surveyed by Whittington Consulting, 45% of respondents stated they didn’t consider they’ve “saved sufficient cash to cowl healthcare wants as I grow old.”
When taken collectively, prices of dwelling like meals, utilities, leisure, well being care are sometimes not removed from senior dwelling charges. As such, many operators come ready to indicate residents how a lot senior dwelling truly prices relative to different bills.
The senior dwelling business should “shift from promoting items to explaining outcomes” in an effort to present the advantages of congregate dwelling, regardless of the associated fee, in line with Precedence Life Care CEO Sevy Petras.
Senior dwelling suppliers can present potential residents and their households the mathematics of dwelling in a neighborhood translated by means of lowered hospitalizations and improved security, Petras stated. There’s additionally the significance of social connection and higher psychological well being, two advantages of senior dwelling that residents don’t at all times consider however little doubt issue into their prices.
All of this hinges on predictable month-to-month bills that give prospects the possibility to weigh their choices, Petras stated. And certainly, virtually 79% of the surveyed older adults stated they like a predictable month-to-month hire over different value constructions, like an entrance payment.
12 Oaks Senior Dwelling maintains extra inexpensive properties constructed within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties that embrace fundamental companies and decrease unit costs ranging between $1,500 to $2,200 per thirty days for impartial dwelling choices with minimal care companies.
A majority of older adults don’t assume senior dwelling is inexpensive and a lot of older adults are suspending a transfer to senior dwelling till their care wants change. Each signify issues for the business, in line with 12 Oaks COO Aaron Catoe.
“This can be a large image of resistance to the mannequin, affordability and client schooling which are all intertwined, so it’s arduous to have a look at simply a type of individually,” Catoe stated.
Minneapolis-based Well being Dimensions Group (HDG) is engaged on a price comparability software that compares prices for older adults in house possession versus what companies and facilities are included in senior dwelling, Government Vice President of Consulting, Gross sales & Advertising Leah Lindgren stated.
“One of the crucial necessary methods we will current our price proposition is to equip our gross sales leaders with compelling, stunning, and galvanizing tales in regards to the improved high quality of life that residents expertise in our senior dwelling communities,” Lindgren stated.
Whereas senior dwelling demand stays “simple” within the years forward, Petras stated it’s as much as the broader business to evolve quick sufficient to fulfill affordability pressures in 2026 and past.
“We see affordability not as a constraint, however as a chance—to steer, to innovate, and to serve the section of seniors who want us most,” Petras added.
Making companies extra inexpensive
Maybe the obvious approach to fight perceptions of unaffordability is to really make companies extra inexpensive. Senior dwelling bills in 2026 are a balancing act and operators are being pulled in a number of instructions, from staffing to the price of care, with sustaining wholesome margins additionally on their thoughts.
Precedence Life Care communities are working to sort out staffing turnover, an space that’s “one of many greatest hidden prices” all operators face, Petras stated.
“Affordability improves when operations are steady, groups are engaged, and residents keep longer—all of that are interconnected,” Petras stated.
By bettering knowledge assortment and knowledge evaluation on resident well being outcomes, Pittore stated the business can current the tangible advantages of senior dwelling to “assist unlock pathways” for insurance coverage firms, well being suppliers and governments to “help in subsidizing the associated fee” for a sure subset of shoppers.
“Exterior of some unexpected financial or geo-political shock, there isn’t any straightforward or direct answer, and it’ll proceed to worsen earlier than it will get higher,” Pittore stated.
Some senior dwelling suppliers with expertise mixing private-pay choices and reimbursement fashions by means of the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers (CMS) are testing new methods to maintain a portion of items inexpensive, although solely in restricted instances.
Throughout its higher-end and center market properties, HDG now identifies a choose handful of house varieties which have had “much less demand curiosity” and lowered rents in these layouts, in line with HDG Senior Vice President of Gross sales and Advertising Julie Flaig Smith.
“This permits individuals who might not have thought of our neighborhood an possibility to maneuver in at a decrease fee,” Flaig Smith stated. “This additionally permits present residents whose monetary scenario might have modified a chance to remain and transfer inside the neighborhood, scale back their total bills, and higher handle their monetary sources.”
Assisted dwelling and reminiscence care properties managed by HDG even have a “larger proportion” of CMS waivers to assist older adults afford elevated care companies, and the corporate is within the strategy of decreasing choose impartial dwelling and assisted dwelling house rents with a number of ranges of care so as to add extra inexpensive choices.
To enhance the notion of affordability in senior dwelling, operators should assume otherwise about pricing methods, whereas additionally higher articulating the worth proposition of senior dwelling, in line with Lindgren. Sharing rental charges and elevated worth transparency on-line is a vital step HDG took in demystifying the price of senior dwelling.
To get employees concerned in decreasing the stigma of senior dwelling, gross sales and advertising and marketing administrators at HDG are educated on messaging and sources which are obtainable to assist make senior dwelling extra inexpensive for prospects.
Nonprofit senior dwelling suppliers are taking steps to deal with affordability inside their senior dwelling portfolios, together with by including house and community-based companies to increase their scientific care capabilities past their communities.
St. Louis-based EverTrue has persistently grown its Anyplace Care packages and companies in a approach that helps the independence, dignity and long-term sustainability of older adults dwelling at house, in line with CEO Adam Marles.
EverTrue additionally oversees a portfolio of 15 inexpensive senior dwelling communities serving over 1,000 residents, by means of low earnings housing tax credit score and sponsored items by means of the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement (HUD). In March, EverTrue will open EverTrue Crossroads at Bevo Mill, a neighborhood in St. Louis with 64 sponsored items.
“Our purpose is to serve older adults in any respect earnings ranges to make sure that everybody has entry to protected and high quality housing, whereas providing supportive programming and companies which have served as enhancements to our residents,” Marles stated.
WesleyLife, the biggest nonprofit senior dwelling supplier working in Iowa, has 25% of accessible items in its impartial dwelling properties occupied by older adults that fall into the center market or beneath segments, in line with incoming CEO Allison Pendroy. In some situations, WesleyLife’s philanthropic wing can also be in a position to present funds for older adults that will have outlived their life financial savings.
“We try this as a result of we wish to assist them to proceed to age in place with us and never be displaced and we’re actually happy with these efforts,” Pendroy stated.
2Life Communities has seen success on affordability lately by means of the launch of its Opus mannequin, a 172-unit persevering with care retirement neighborhood (CCRC) in Newton, Massachusetts, to assist older adults afford senior dwelling by means of a mixture of companies and volunteerism.
Retiring 2Life CEO Amy Schectman stated that the business should take a look at the affordability of senior dwelling by means of the lens of “lifetime affordability,” which means that suppliers should contemplate all steps of an older grownup’s journey in senior dwelling, fairly than specializing in making one care kind inexpensive. By utilizing subsidies and extra precisely billing for care companies as a substitute of charging flat charges, Schectman stated strides in affordability will come.
“That’s why it’s actually necessary to have a mannequin that economically retains individuals in a position to afford all the pieces their entire lives,” Schectman stated.
Conserving senior dwelling charges inexpensive would require “each macro and micro options,” Lindgren stated.
“We should proceed to enhance our operational efficiencies by means of improved processes, investments in expertise and AI, enhanced high quality of care and robust employees coaching packages,” Lindgren added.
