Senior Living Has 100% More Demand Coming…with Barely Any Supply

Dave:
Senior housing is one of those asset classes that people talk about like it’s either a guaranteed wave where you’re going to make a ton of money no matter what, or it’s this complicated niche you should never actually touch. But the truth is it’s neither. It is a real operating business. It’s heavily driven by demographics and it has its own risks and regulations and underwriting rules that are not all that similar to buying a single family rental. But at the same time, there are really strong demographic demand and supply tailwinds that are propelling this business into being one of the most interesting and dare I say, exciting asset class for real estate investors to consider. I’m Dave Meyer and today I’m joined by Jerry Vinci for a deep dive into the senior housing market. We’ll break down the demand story and why this can be such a compelling asset class, but we’ll also talk about how those headline occupancy numbers you see can be a little misleading, how there are different product types within the senior housing umbrella that you should consider and what investors really need to understand about operations, margins, and risk before they ever consider writing a check.
This is on the market. Let’s get into it. Jerry, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Jerry:
Thanks for having me, Dave. Appreciate it.

Dave:
Yeah, excited to have you on. Give us a litle bit of your background. Who are you and what do you do?

Jerry:
Yeah, sure. Happy to. Yeah, I spent nearly 30 years kind of at the intersection of the operating side of senior living as well as the capital facing side of senior living. For the operators side, I’m the founder of a company called CCRG, short for CCR Growth, and it’s a demand generation agency. We work exclusively with senior living and I always describe it as we help operators optimize their pipeline. So we typically own the whole experience from the moment a family starts their search online to the day that they move in. And then on the capital side, I’m co-founder of a company called Nordon, that’s N-O-R-D-O-N. And we’re essentially an independent diagnostics firm built for investors and capital allocators who are underwriting senior housing. So it’s like the same core methodology we’re using as the marketing side of our business, but it’s just a completely different customer.
All

Dave:
Right. So Jerry, when you talk about senior living, it feels to me that there’s a lot of different subcategories of senior living. So what are we actually talking about? Is this assisted living? Are they big facilities, small facilities, or what entails this big umbrella of senior living?

Jerry:
There’s typically four categories of senior housing. There’s independent living, which is your 55 plus housing. You also have in that category, sometimes you’ll see CCRCs, which stands for continuing care retirement community or life plan community. Those are your active adults, people who might just be looking to downsize and live among other people who like similar things and are of a similar age that they are. Then you have assisted living, which is kind of like the next level of care. Then you have memory care, which is for dementia, Alzheimer’s. And then you have skilled nursing, which is kind of the old nursing home model just improved more so it’s not such a dark, scary place like it used to be. But those are typically the four main categories. And then even within those, you have residential assisted living, which are like micro communities of five or six residents all the way to buildings that have 800, 900 residents.
So it’s really just a broad stroke.

Dave:
Yeah. So generally it’s just people, it sounds like anywhere from 55 years up in all different walks of life, different stages of their life, different needs, different desires. So there’s a lot to cover there. I would also imagine though, is it a different customer too? Because I would imagine for an active community like you mentioned, it’s one or two individuals making the decision for themselves. As it gets older, like you just talked about dealing with family members. So in terms of different asset classes, where are the opportunities? Where are the challenges?

Jerry:
The challenge with the housing market, I think is the fact that boomers, there’s a good percentage of them that are house rich and cash poor. So you see that number that I think it’s over 50% of them have less than 250,000 in assets. So it’s like, how can they afford senior living? Well, they’re selling their homes to do it. So you’ve got the top third of boomers who will sell their home. They’ll get into senior living, no problem. They’ll pay those higher monthly fees and all is good. Then you’ve got the middle tier. And that’s kind of where I think the most opportunity is because affordable senior housing is not necessarily something that there’s a lot of right now. You see a lot of investors are pumping money into these luxury independent living communities. And what we really need is assisted living and memory care.
And that kind of goes back to the demographic piece of it too, because we look at this number, we hear about silver tsunami, we hear, oh, there’s this massive swell. And like you had said on one of your episodes too that I think tsunami is like the worst word you could possibly use because when I think of tsunami, I think of this giant wave that’s going to come crashing down really fast and destroy everything around it. But it’s more like a glacier than it is like a tsunami. For sure. It’s moving slow and there’s really no way to stop it. It’s just it’s coming for us whether we like it or not. But the demographic story is like by 2030, all boomers will be 65 and by 2040, we’ll have 110% more people over the age of 85 than we have right now. And typically 80 to 85 is the age range where people move into senior living.
So even though this population is hitting 65 and above now, it’s not really until they hit 80 that it’s really going to start impacting senior living. So we’re kind of just at the beginning of stages of this. And I think that’s why everybody’s kind of like blowing it off. They’re saying, “We’ve heard about this for 10 years. Everybody’s been talking about the silver tsunami, but nothing’s ever come of it. ” And now here we are starting tose that transition happen.

Dave:
So it seems that the investing cases just demand then, right? There’s just going to be a lot of demand for senior housing in the next, sounds like for decades.

Jerry:
Yeah, at least the next two decades. I mean, there’s also been a little bit of a misnomer about the baby boomer generation too, because I think there’s an assumption that there’s this massive generation and then once they’re gone, what are we going to do with all this housing that we’ve built or all these things that we’ve created for the boomers? Is it just going to be wasted? But there’s actually more millennials than there are boomers, 73 million millennials and 71 million boomers or something like that. So there’s actually more. So anything that’s built or being repurposed now for senior housing is going to be available for the next two generations as well. So I think it’s a pretty sound investment. But yeah, like you’re saying, I mean, 10, 20 years, it’s not going to be an overnight thing. But looking at the industry overall in terms of demand, I mean, we’ve had 18 consecutive quarters of growth and in Q4 of 2025, I think the national average occupancy was at 89% and by the end of 2026, it’s supposed to be over 90%.
So demand is there. The real challenge in senior living is the supply.

Dave:
That was going to be my question. Yeah.

Jerry:
I mean, we are so woefully behind. It’s almost scary at this point.

Dave:
Tell me about that because that’s sort of where multifamily has gone awry in the last couple of years. There’s demand for housing, but very localized oversupply. Some areas still undersupplied, but big glut of multifamily, particularly in the Sunbelt, you look at that, that’s hurt returns, rent growth, cap rates, all that. But it sounds like on the senior living side, that supply glut isn’t there and maybe the opposite exists.

Jerry:
Yeah, it actually is. It’s the complete opposite of that. If we look at between now and 2040 to meet the demand that’s going to be coming with senior housing, we would have to build around 100,000 to 125,000 units every year to meet that. And if we just look at last year as an example, in Q3 of 2025, there was 1,000 units that had started construction and in Q1 there was like 1,500. So in all of 2025, there was probably like 4,000 units that had started construction and in total there’s like 20,000 active units being built. So we have less than 25% of the supply being created right now than we actually need.

Dave:
Wow, that’s insane. I mean, from an investor standpoint, seems like a strong case, high demand, relatively low supply. But to me, just being a novice, I don’t know anything about this, but the operations seem complicated. So tell me what is the operating model for an investor?

Jerry:
Yeah, I think that’s the biggest challenge because I would say multifamily is like 70% of the way they’re in understanding senior living, but that last 30% is the operating piece of it.

Dave:
You just mean underwriting and what

Jerry:
It

Dave:
Takes, financing, that kind of stuff.

Jerry:
Yeah, because the real estate drives the asset value, but then the operating business inside of it drives the NOI. So that’s the piece that is like the variable that really until you get into this market, you don’t really know what that looks like. Operators, they’re not just running the building, they’re running like the revenue engine, for example, that’s running the building. They have to create the operating profit that is being underwritten in those deals. In multifamily, you sign a 12-month lease, the resident pays or they don’t. It’s pretty mechanical in terms of collecting rent and things like that. But in senior housing, every resident is the result of a long sales process. Families, they don’t sign up online. That’s interesting. They have to visit, they have the tour, they ask 30 questions, and then they come back with their adult children a lot of times and then they think about it for six months before they ever even sign.

Dave:
It’s a big decision.

Jerry:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a huge decision. And then if you think about all the pieces that are running inside of the community itself that have to be run and managed well, you’ve got the caretaking side, you’ve got dining, you’ve got entertainment, you’ve got travel, hospitality, all of these things wrapped together around a real estate asset. It’s pretty complex to try to figure out who’s performing well. And even if one number, like say occupancy looks great on paper, there could be some underlying issues that maybe they’re not seeing.

Dave:
Yeah. Okay. That’s super, super helpful because I
Get the macro trends here. It makes a lot of sense to me, but the operations is every business is hard, but it’s a specialization, right? You have to know this. As an investor though, I’m curious how you get involved because you could do what you’re talking about and you start a business where you’re operating this whole thing. But I actually was looking at investing in a fund that was buying senior living and they were going out and buying the facilities and then doing triple net leases to operators and that way they didn’t actually have to do all that stuff you just talked about and

Jerry:
They

Dave:
Had a tenant doing that essentially. So I’m just curious what you think about different models and ways people can access this asset class. Maybe some people in our audience want to go out and do that, but if they don’t, what other avenues are there to get in?

Jerry:
Well, what you’re talking about with the triple net leases, essentially, that’s kind of the old model where the investors would partner with the operators and essentially the operators would pay rent to that investment committee. Now we’re seeing a lot more of the shop, the senior housing operating partner relationships where they’re taking a piece of that profit as well.

Dave:
The housing.

Jerry:
Yeah.

Dave:
Yeah. Oh, interesting.

Jerry:
Yeah. So their profits are tied directly to the operational piece of that business now. So if it’s run well, if they’ve optimized all areas of that community, then that’s going to be more profitable for everybody, not just for the community.

Dave:
And I guess what’s in it for the operator then? Do they get lower rents or something in exchange for giving up equity to the real estate owner?

Jerry:
I mean, probably less risk for them because they’re not shouldering at all themselves. That would probably be the first thing I would think. But for multifamily, looking to get into this space, I mean, you see there’s a lot of REITs out there that are doing this where you can invest say like 100 to 500,000 or something and get in with a public fund or something like that. I would start somewhere like that. I wouldn’t necessarily go into private lending or anything crazy like that right out of the gate before you really understand this industry.

Dave:
Yeah. This is great stuff learning a lot about the senior housing market, but we do have to take a quick break. We’ll be back with Jerry right after this. Welcome back to On The Market. I’m Dave Meyer. Let’s dive back in with Jerry Vinci. What about really small assets? Because I’ve heard other real estate investors who go out and buy an eight unit or whatever and it’s nice and they convert it into an assisted living facility. What do you make of that model where you’re kind of doing a small boutique kind of thing?

Jerry:
Who’s running it? That would always be my first question. Well,

Dave:
That’s the thing I’m always wondering. It’s like you’re a real estate investor, which is fine, but being a landlord and being operating senior living, assisted living facility seem like really different businesses to me. I hosted another podcast, BiggerPockets Podcast, and I’ve had a guest on there who’s doing this really successfully, but he was working in assisted living as a nurse and then he was like, “Oh, I can do this. ” Exactly. And so he knew what it took and has a genuine care for seniors and being in that world, that makes sense to me. But just based on your body language, it seems like maybe you don’t recommend the average real estate investor go out of there and do

Jerry:
This.
Again, who’s going to be operating the place? Is it going to be them? If it is, then they have a serious crash course ahead of them to learn how to operate even a small community because most of those small residential assisted living homes that you’re talking about that are like five, six, maybe eight residents, they’re typically like a higher level of care. It’s usually a memory care or assisted living. So it’s not like you’re just going to be able to step in and manage this place like a hotel. You’ve got to provide meals, entertainment twenty four seven around the clock care in most cases. So it’s pretty complex. And yeah, I’m pretty shocked. I’ve seen quite a few investors get in and I think it’s because from a multifamily housing standpoint, it seems similar, right? You can get in, it’s not a huge investment. I mean, a typical senior living community can go anywhere from like five to 15 million as a investment.
So starting there would be a pretty big hill to climb, whereas like a residential assisted living home, you could purchase a home for 500,000, a million, something like that and renovate it and turn it into one of these communities pretty quickly and easily and turn it around and make a profit on it. But it’s all about the operating piece who’s running this. So

Dave:
Assuming people in our audience would be interested in getting into this in some way or another whether it’s syndication, REITs, the public option or operating it themselves, what are the major things you need to understand as you underwrite a deal? What are you looking for in a senior living facility, both from a real estate perspective and sort of a demand and I guess whatever else?

Jerry:
I think due diligence in senior living is very similar to any other industry. There’s a ton of different workflows that typically will go through with due diligence, but there’s questions that are not being asked right now. And again, I keep going back to the operator piece of it, but I think that’s probably the most important one is making sure that you’re learning and understanding how things are functioning inside enough to know whether if this asset’s already producing, can it keep producing and can it do that sustainably? So just looking at that. Some of the questions that I think that people looking to invest in this space should probably be asking the first question would definitely be, can this operator actually sustain or grow occupancy in this specific local market? And that’s the thing about senior living too, unlike some other markets, it’s hyper local. 85 to 90% of residents will move in from a five to 10 mile radius of your community on average.
Oh, wow.

Dave:
Okay.

Jerry:
Yeah. So it’s not like you have to create some massive national campaign to fill your building. It’s typically a small radius, but just making sure that you have all of those pieces in place. But yeah, answering that question would be first and foremost. And then some of the other things that we typically look at, depending on where somebody is in terms of writing a deal, there’s multiple things. There’s like pre-acquisition. So if they’re just looking to get into it, there’s a market entry position. So if they’re looking at like maybe they want to expand into a new space, but they’re not sure there’s a specific question for that. So if somebody’s looking to get into the market, they should be asking like, “Is there actually room for us in this market or is it already locked up?” Outside of just what the community’s doing, is there space?
Can we create a new community in this space or are the competitors so strong that there’s no room? Another big one in senior living is transitions because you’ll see a lot of times that the operator will change or management will change within the building. So a lot of times you have to ask yourself like six months from now when occupancy softens, can I actually prove what the new operator inherited? So we can, for example, have a diagnostic that here’s where occupancy and here’s where performance stood the day the deal was signed and here’s where it stands the day the keys change hands because those can be very different numbers. So making sure you understand so you can hold your operator accountable is very important.

Dave:
All right everyone, we’ve got to take one more quick break, but we’ll be back with Jerry right after this. Welcome back to On the Market. Let’s get back to my conversation about senior housing with Jerry Vinci. What about from the real estate perspective? Obviously you need to operate it well, but what makes a good facility and are most of them developed specifically for the purpose of senior living or do some of them get retrofit from multifamily or something else?

Jerry:
I think we’re starting to see more retrofitting happening just because of what I talked about with the supply side, because a construction project, for example, that started right now, it wouldn’t be done until 2027, 2028. And if we’re this far behind with inventory, we’re going to have to find it somewhere. So you see a lot of retrofitting happening. Also, 25%, it’s like 25 or 30% of inventory right now is more than 25 years old. So a lot of it has to be updated as well, which is another challenge all on its own. Depending on size, they’re going to have different amenities and different features and functionalities, but your standard, say like an assisted living community, it’s going to be anywhere from 50 to 100 units and it’s going to be a mix of individual like studio apartments, one bedroom, two bedroom typically. And sometimes they even have like friends will get a unit together.
So you’ll have one person staying in one room, one, the other. So companion suites, they call them. So those are typically like the four different types of housing in there. And then you’ve got all of your amenities, your dining. And today it’s not just like a cafeteria. You’ve got multiple restaurants, you’ve got sometimes like a quick grab spot, things like that. And that’s typically what that’s going to look like on the inside. And then from the operating piece of it, again, you got to look at where the pipeline is getting filled from. I think that’s an important piece of understanding the real estate because in senior living and I know other industries have similar things, but we have a lot of problems with third party aggregators, which is essentially if you’ve heard of a placeformom or caring.com, these websites that people go to when they’re searching for senior housing, they type in senior housing in Santa Fe or something like that.
And when they do that, oftentimes a website like A Place for Mom, which is just a directory of communities in your area is going to show up. And a lot of times that shows up before the actual communities do in the search results. So people click on that first not realizing they’re on one of these sites. And what happens is those aggregators will send that lead to like five or 10 or 15 different communities at the same time. So now they’re all fighting over that same lead. If you’ve ever tried to buy insurance online, it’s the same damn thing. It’s so frustrating

Dave:
Or a mortgage.

Jerry:
Yeah.

Dave:
Our audience

Jerry:
Are

Dave:
Very familiar with this.

Jerry:
So just imagine if you’re trying to find a place for a mom or dad and they’re dealing with, they just got diagnosed with dementia. Now you’re getting calls from 15 different salespeople from 15 different communities. So it doesn’t do anything to help the experience for the family and it also doesn’t do anything for the community because now the community is chasing a lead that may not even be a good fit for them and they don’t know because they just got it from this third party instead of getting it directly from that family. And there’s some portfolios right now where 80% or higher of their move-ins of their occupancy is from those aggregators. And the problem with that is that every single time one of those people moves in, you pay the first month’s rent as commission. So first month’s rent out the door on 80% of your move-ins, can you imagine what that would do to your bottom line?
So I think looking at that mix of where that community is getting its leads from and do they have a system that’s optimized well to get people from the initial touchpoint all the way through to move in and that includes marketing, sales and operations. I mean, I think you have to have some understanding of that to really understand what makes a good community versus one that’s not run well.

Dave:
That’s a great point. And it’s a really good reminder for our audience of the risk and reward of this industry. I think we see this too, Jerry, I don’t know if you’re familiar, but we talk a lot about self-storage here and how that’s different from multifamily because you need to be a good marketer there. It’s not like

Jerry:
There’s

Dave:
Just a steady stream of people who are like, “Oh, I want to live on this block. There’s an apartment on this block. I’ll reach out to that landlord.” For those of us who mostly work in multifamily or residential real estate, you still have to have a good product, but the marketing piece, it’s not really that hard. You can throw it on Zillow and apartments.com and you’re fine. This is a different business as you’re pointing out that you need to be good at marketing. So I really recommend for anyone who’s, I guess either if you want to be an operator or if you’re going to partner with an operator, you need to make sure they’re good at that, that they’re good at this lead flow and figuring out how you’re going to get demand on top of actually providing a quality service that meets resident expectations on top of that.

Jerry:
Yeah. There’s just so much on the line and you don’t often think about that if you’re outside this industry, but when that lead comes in, it’s not just a person looking for housing, it’s a family trying to find a solution to a crisis. And so acting fast, acting in a careful, mindful, compassionate way when you do reach back out to them and making sure that you’re holding their hand the entire way through the process, that makes it very different than your typical real estate asset for sure.

Dave:
Well, thank you so much, Jerry. This has been super helpful. Any other last thoughts or advice to our audience about this asset class?

Jerry:
I think the demographics of the senior housing space, they’re literally handing this industry 20 years of demand, this isn’t going anywhere. What investors decide to do with it is their story. The operators who own their demand infrastructure, like I was just talking about owning that pipeline, the ones who treat sales and marketing as one accountable system, making sure that they’re focused on what’s best for the family first. They’re the ones where the success of those communities is going to compound and anyone who’s tied to that, investors, whoever else is going to reap the benefits of that as well. So I think investors who know how to tell those two apart what’s working and what’s not working before they commit, they’re the ones that are going to make the most money and get the most out of this 20-year cycle that’s coming.

Dave:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jerry. If people want to learn more from you, where should they connect with you?

Jerry:
Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, two places. If you want to learn more about the operator side of senior living and talk to us about demand generation, you can go to ccrgrowth.com. And if you want to learn about due diligence on investing in the senior housing space, you can go to Nordonadvisory, that’s N-O-R-D-O-N advisory.com.

Dave:
Thanks again, Jerry. And thank you all so much for watching this episode of On The Market. I’m Dave Meyer. We’ll see you next time.