After Pause, Jdi Realty Jumps Back Into Senior Living With Flurry Of Acquisitions 

After spending more than 15 years away from the senior living sector, JDI Realty is diving back into the industry with a new slate of deals.

In just over a year, the Chicago-based company has acquired 10 communities comprising around 1,200 units, with no plans on slowing down in the coming year.

“We’re finding that it’s certainly a little more competitive out there today, but we’re finding that you can still win opportunities, and there’s a lot of interesting product out there,” Adam Seidenberg, vice president of JDI Realty, told Senior Housing News. “If our portfolio grows to 20 properties by next year, we’d be really happy.”

The firm notched around a dozen senior living deals in the late 1990s and early 2000s before exiting the industry during the Great Financial Crisis. What brought it back was a combination of attractive pricing and returns. The “dislocation of the market” in 2023 and 2024 accelerated those trends and led to more deals.

JDI Realty has benefitted from its nimbleness and an openness to work with operators, Seidenberg said.

JDI’s current partners include Stellar Senior Living in Houston, Health Dimensions Group in Wisconsin, Chapters Senior Living in Atlanta, Symphony Care in Detroit and American House Senior Living in New Hampshire. The company is keeping its eyes open for more opportunities elsewhere in the U.S., especially Midwest and Northeast, Seidenberg said.

JDI is seeking to acquire “overlooked” properties and is open to secondary and tertiary markets “in the right scenario.” The general profile it looks for is a “Class B product in a Class A market” or light to medium value add Class A communities in major metropolitan areas, according to Seidenberg. The firm is in growth mode within senior housing, but plans to hold onto its properties for at least a couple of years before looking to sell when performance is overall stabilized. 

“We want some sort of value-add profile,” he said. “We want to be able to acquire property today that has good cash flow, or at least some cash flow, and then really gives us, along with our operating partner, an opportunity to add value in the future.” 

Around one-third of JDI’s portfolio consists of senior living communities with average occupancy rates above 90%. The company also acquired a portfolio of five communities in Michigan with average occupancy of about 65% for $100,000 per unit – turnaround opportunities that can and bring in “good cash flow.”

JDI’s leaders hold weekly check-ins with the company’s operating partners. Seidenberg also brings operational experience to the group, having worked with Anthology Senior Living for five years, ending as vice president of asset management, before he joined JDI in 2024.

“As long as things are going well, we’re not going to be overly intrusive on our operators,” Seidenberg said. “We want our operators to do the work that they’re the best at, which is operating the properties. We’re hands on, but it’s all relative.”

Moving forward, JDI plans to continue growing its presence within the senior living sector through additional acquisitions. The ideal profile, according to Seidenberg, includes price per unit below replacement costs, strong demographics, built in the past 25 years, median household incomes above the national average and a clear path to stabilization.

“We’re really excited about that growth, and we want to continue to move on it,” Seidenberg said.

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