Brookdale Senior Residing CEO Nick Stengle believes {that a} leaner portfolio and a give attention to supply-demand, essential mass and operational excellence are prime methods to deliver the corporate into its subsequent evolution.
Earlier this week, the Brentwood, Tennessee-based senior residing operator mentioned it anticipated to notch income per out there rooms (RevPAR) development of between 8% and 9%, together with adjusted earnings earlier than taxes, earnings earlier than taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $502 million to $516 million this yr. By comparability, Brookdale reported RevPAR development of 5.7% and adjusted EBITDA of $458 million for the whole lot of 2025.
On the identical time, Brookdale is continuous to pare down its portfolio because it has intermittently for the final 9 years. The senior residing operator’s complete portfolio depend registered at 584 communities throughout 41 states as of its most up-to-date depend, however that quantity is ready dip to 517 later this yr, Stengle mentioned throughout a particular assembly with Brookdale administration, buyers and analysts Friday.
As of the fourth quarter of 2025, Brookdale’s same-community common occupancy sat at 83.5%, representing a achieve over the corporate’s same-community common occupancy of 82.3% within the third quarter of 2025.
Waiting for 2026, the corporate is “sprinting” to spice up its common occupancy stage to 84.5% – its common simply earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic – and past that, again to its best-ever occupancy price of 89%, which it final reported in 2013.
Stengle, who Brookdale named to the CEO final October, sees three “key levers” the corporate should pull to get there: benefiting from present supply-demand dynamics, attaining essential mass in its market density and notching higher operational outcomes.
Brookdale additionally now owns greater than three-fourths of its portfolio, a energy when coupled with the truth that additionally it is the most important operator of senior residing by complete unit depend.
“We’re basically an working firm … nevertheless, we’re constructed upon a basis of actual property,” he mentioned throughout the presentation Friday.
Screenshot by way of Brookdale Senior Residing Investor Day presentationMaking the most of supply-demand dynamics
In an effort to succeed, Brookdale should serve the hundreds of thousands of child boomers transferring into senior housing communities within the years to return.
The corporate cited U.S. Census Bureau projections displaying that the variety of Individuals age 80 and older will improve 55% within the subsequent decade. Annually, a couple of million older adults will enter the corporate’s goal demographic.
Barely greater than half of Brookdale residents transfer into the operator’s communities between the ages of 80 and 90. The corporate’s present resident common age is simply over 83 years.
A scarcity of recent improvement is constraining the variety of new senior residing openings in 2026. Based on NIC MAP information, new senior residing stock development remained beneath 1% of complete stock within the fourth quarter of 2025.
In the meantime, demand for senior residing is steadily rising as older adults age and new neighborhood openings stay scarce. Based on NIC information, the business is on observe to face a demand-supply shortfall of 100,000 models by 2027 and 400,000 models by 2035.
Wanting down the street, Brookdale administration believes that the present stage of market demand will help the next income per occupied room (RevPOR), and can in flip speed up adjusted EBITDA.
Each achieve of 100 foundation factors of occupancy yields about $23 million in extra senior housing working revenue on a same-community foundation, based on the operator’s investor day presentation. Equally each 1% level of RevPOR development above expense inflation yields about $27 million in extra senior housing working revenue on a same-community foundation.
“Essentially, the occupancy development is coming from the [demand-supply dynamics,” Stengle said. “We definitely feel it. We’re seeing it already.”
Critical mass in local markets
As Brookdale management has long said, the operator is seeking to “win locally” in its markets across the country.
In 2026, the company is seeking to increase its “critical mass” in its operational strongholds, which include Austin, Texas; Kansas City; Los Angeles; and Portland, Oregon; among many others. Today, more than half of the age- and income-qualified older adults in the U.S. live within a 30-minute drive to a Brookdale community.
“We are looking for targeted acquisitions in markets where we already exist,” Stengle said. “We’re not planting new flags in new markets. We’re not expanding geographically.”
The operator clusters its communities by care type, price and location and shares resources in order to take advantage of its density in a market. Instead of “winning individual communities,” the company’s management seeks to “win entire markets” via this approach.
“We want to provide optionality to someone who is seeking senior living,” Stengle said. “We want to give them options on price point. We want to give them options on the care type they want … and we want to cover all of those needs as best as we can.”
This approach also lets Brookdale cluster its leaders and staff to flex from one community to another as needed.
“This is the beauty of having a company like ours,” Stengle said. “We can deploy recruiting support if there’s a staffing issue. We can deploy culinary support if there’s a dining issue. We can deploy asset management support if there’s a CapEx deployment-type issue, or whatever the case may be.”
Stengle compared the company’s growth strategy in its markets to filling up a bingo card.
“We want to fill that bingo card even where we feel we are winning,” he said. “We want to fully complete that bingo card and fill that one void that might exist, no matter what form it might take.”
Brookdale also is planning to implement new sales incentives in its communities that are “bespoke to the market.”
“It’s a community-based program. It does have a referral component if they refer to a sister Brookdale community,” Stengle added.
Operating company built on real estate foundation
As the owner of the majority of its portfolio, Stengle and the company’s other leaders have built in more flexibility to directly control outcomes in the operator’s communities. In fact, Brookdale is the third-largest owner of senior living real estate in the U.S., only behind real estate investment trusts (REITs) Ventas (NYSE: VTR) and Welltower (NYSE: WELL).
Senior living management companies might only get a “sliver” of the value of a community in the end. The “real stays with the owner of the real estate … as NOI grows,” he said.
Last year, Brookdale reorganized its portfolio into six regions that act as individual operating companies. Six vice presidents lead operations in the markets and lead a regional team that represents “all key functions,” including sales, dining, memory care and workforce management.
The company also has a newly refreshed management team that not only includes a new CEO, Stengle; but a new COO – and its first in a decade – Mary Sue Patchett.
In addition to boosting owned real estate, the company is offloading certain communities where it does not feel like it can play to its strengths.
“We are in a period of doing a little more rationalization, really getting out of some non-core-type assets, and pinning down those 517 – owned and leased – consolidated communities that we will continue to own [and] function,” Stengle mentioned.
