Investors bullish on senior living, although deal volume isn’t reflecting demand
Investors are being bullish in the senior living market versus other commercial real estate property types, National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care Head of Research and Analytics Lisa McCracken said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the organization.
She was referring to independent living, assisted living and memory care communities specifically.
One indication of this bullishness, she said, are the results of a poll NIC conducted at its 2025 Fall Conference about industry sentiment. “We hit a high water mark here last month,” she said.
In the survey, 92% of the almost 2,900 respondents reported having an “extremely positive” or “positive” outlook on the sector for the year ahead, which was 21.8% higher than respondents to a similar poll conducted six months earlier at NIC’s 2025 Spring Conference, when the survey was conducted for the first time.
The sector is being fueled by strong and growing demand, as the oldest baby boomers will turn 80 next year, according to NIC.
Demand is not being reflected in deal volume, however.
According to webinar guest speaker Jim Costello, executive director at MSCI Research & Development, deal volumes still are below pre-pandemic levels.
The good news is that deal volume was up 55% in the second quarter compared with the same quarter of 2024.
Individual property sales increased 21% year over year, but “megadeal” activity climbed 131% during that time, Costello said.
Overall, the average monthly number of transactions year to date is 1.5% higher than the average monthly pace seen from 2015 to 2019, which may indicate a return to normalcy, according to Costello.
More loans originated in 2025 than in recent years with a diverse pool of capital, and there is “more credit availability than there was in 2023 and 2024, when we had that after-effect of moving from the low interest rate environment to where we are now,” he said.
McCracken noted that the senior living industry faces many uncertainties given the demographics. Costello added that many uncertainties still exist in the economy, too, such as labor challenges and the unknown effects of tariffs.
“So you have firms doing things, like you’ve seen a surge in investment. It’s really just firms hoarding goods ahead of tariffs potentially hitting,” he said. “And once that goes away, GDP [gross domestic product] can fall.”