Occupancy, Development, Leadership: Inside 3 Top Senior Living Trends For 2026

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Development is frozen, but savvy companies are getting projects done. Surging demand is raising the operational bar even higher. The “age wave” is more like an age “high tide,” with a corresponding “low tide.”

These are just a few of the big forces shaping the senior living industry in 2026, as heard from the stage at our first-ever SHN TRENDS event in Chicago earlier this week. The event included leaders from companies like Ventas (NYSE: VTR), Atria Senior Living, Treplus Communities, Cogir, American House and REDICO, Greystar, LCS and Vi, the Senior Living Transformation Company, Merrill Gardens, Mather and many others.

One of the biggest takeaways from the event is that the senior living industry is in a good spot with regard to average occupancy, but that is also putting pressure on senior living companies to continually improve as their average census climbs ever-closer to 100%.

Developers are getting new projects in the ground even while construction remains tough to notch, but a common theme I heard at TRENDS is that it takes a lot of experience and patience – and vertical integration doesn’t hurt, either.

Another interesting perspective from the TRENDS stage came from Frank Small, who is managing partner and CIO at the Senior Living Transformation Company. During a panel on “ghost trends,” – things quietly changing the industry behind the scenes – Small said he thought the industry’s “age wave” in the form of the baby boomers is more of an age “high tide” in that gains won’t be equal across all markets and sectors. Affordability, acuity, operators and assets will all influence occupancy, creating something akin to a K-shaped recovery for companies in the space where some operators succeed and others struggle.

These were only a few of the top trends I saw on stage and heard in the hallways at TRENDS. In this members-only SHN+ Update, I will analyze what panelists had to say at TRENDS and offer the following takeaways:

• Occupancy is about more than demand
• Growth via development is possible for savvy companies, but it’s not easy
• Good leadership is rare, but can be trained

Occupancy is on the rise, but gains not guaranteed

On paper, the senior living industry’s prospects in the next decade look red-hot. Millions of baby boomers are set to turn 80 and higher in the years to come, and the rate of new construction sits near the bottom of a trough. This has pushed the industry’s average occupancy to just under 90% for operators in the top primary markets tracked by NIC MAP.

To be clear, I think occupancy is a riding tide that will lift all boats in senior living. But there is some nuance to these trends, too.

Many operators have told me in the last few years that even two similar communities in the same market can arrive at different outcomes depending on their average rates, their property and amenities and services.

Demand is generally high on a national level, but there are factors that influence occupancy on a local level that operators must pay attention to. Senior living demand is sort of like the ocean in that it rises and sinks much like a tide. Knowing where the tide is high and where it’s low is vitally important.

“It’s so asset-specific, so market-specific, so operator-specific, so team-in-the-building-specific that … you have to actually drill down a little bit,” Small said during the panel on ghost trends. 

The Senior Living Transformation Co. is taking that philosophy to heart when searching for growth, sometimes in markets with hidden opportunities. The company bought a property in Fredericksburg, Texas, which lies about an hour from San Antonio and an hour and a half from Austin. While the market might not look compelling from a 30,000-foot view, it actually has a high number of millionaires and a forthcoming Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts property under construction – two factors that indicate it’s ripe for growth, Small said.

“We’re trying to see past some of the NFL cities and get past the soundbytes,” Small said. “There are lots of great places where our target consumers want to live.”

Another trend I noticed during the event is that, as occupancy rises, so too does the pressure on operators to perform well. Rising occupancy rates are pushing some ownership companies that partner with operators, like Ventas, to expect better results.

About half of the REIT’s 807 same-store senior housing operating portfolio have occupancy at or above 90%. Another 10% of the communities in the portfolio report occupancy rates nearing 100%.

As more communities approach full occupancy, “the old standard” of senior living won’t be enough to achieve the kind of results that leaders of their operating partners want to see, according to Ventas CIO and EVP of Senior Housing Justin Hutchens. High demand means companies that serve senior living residents and work with larger REIT partners are held to a higher standard.

“The new standard is really to achieve zero lost revenue days, or something close to that,” he said on the TRENDS stage. “[Good operators] wake up every day concerned about the well-being of seniors and the well-being of their staff … and that is combined with really good analytics, measuring the business, setting goals and pushing the team to be focused on retention strategies for staff and senior management.”

As operators approach and exceed the 90% occupancy benchmark, their focus is shifting to margins, and by extension, expenses and rental rates.

“High occupancy actually can hide a lot of operational weaknesses that exist in an organization, and just because a building is full or has high occupancy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s profitable,” said Lori Colwell-Jones, who became CEO of Trustwell Living earlier this year.

From charging the appropriate rental rates to making sure residents are in the right care levels, operators have plenty to focus on as occupancy moves ever-upward. That puts the onus on operators to analyze and collect the right data, she added.

Development isn’t totally dead, the key is experience and patience

Development is near historic lows, but savvy companies are still getting projects in the ground by controlling costs and leaning on internal integration. On Wednesday, I hosted a panel featuring leaders from three movers and shakers in the development world, DMK Development, American House/REDICO and Cogir.

I came away from that panel with the notion that development is still steadily moving forward in some markets, even if conditions are far from ideal. But I also noticed the companies doing so typically have a lot of in-house support in the form of vertical integration, and the projects they are moving forward with command rates that justify the pro forma. Such is the case of American House Senior Living and its holding company REDICO, which stands for Real Estate Development Investment Company, according to Managing Director Samantha Eckhout.

Projects that used to center on wowing the so-called adult daughters of prospects are now also geared toward winning over the people who will eventually work there.

“It’s really being integrated and working really hard with our team and making sure that the resident experiences and the staff experiences are operationally excellent,” Eckhout said on the TRENDS stage. “We’re spending just as much time on the team member experience now because if they’re not happy, then nothing else matters.”

Like REDICO and American House, DMK development spends a lot of time studying market profiles to determine where to plant their flag next. The company has a conservative model for new community performance that doesn’t assume 98% occupancy or an NOI margin above 40%.

In the last three or four months, more development projects have penciled for Cogir as NOI and occupancy estimates rise. The company has found success in urban, walkable projects, with one such community months from opening in the Scottsdale, Arizona, metro area, according to Brannon Lambert, VP of Real Estate Development at Cogir Senior Living.

Zooming the lens back out, the commonality I observed among all three companies was a willingness to keep the wheel turning with new deals, and move on quickly when they don’t work out. What also stood out to me was how the three panelists all believed that the development wave would pick up sooner or later. Instead of waiting around for conditions to change, these companies are educating the market and seeking creativity to make it work now.

“There’s going to be a lot of money, a lot of experts, a lot of developers flocking to senior living, and they’ll find a way to build it faster, cheaper,” Lambert said.

Good leadership is a rare currency, training is possible

Are good leaders hired or trained? The answer is a little bit of both, according to two Senior Housing News Executives to Watch awardees.

While operators must hire people with traits that suit them for senior living, experience is the real fire that tempers people into leaders.

“Certainly, there are fundamental traits that we want to hire for: good judgment, willingness to learn, empathy. But I think leadership is developed through experience. I don’t think it’s training alone,” said Mather Chief Experience Officer Brenda Schreiber. “I think growth happens when they have a seat at the table and they’re exposed to new initiatives.”

She added that among the “biggest opportunities” she sees for leadership improvement in senior living is for people at the top of various departments to break down their respective silos and work even closer together.

“It’s natural to get lost in your day-to-day operations, but I think the biggest opportunity is system thinking so that we can ensure that, for the next generation of consumers, we’re focused on the experience,” she added.

Succession planning is another pressure point in the senior living industry. In the years to come, many of the people who blazed trails and created the modern senior living industry will step away and pass the torch to new leaders. Jason Childers, COO at Merrill Gardens, said the antidote to succession planning woes is in part to hire people who will “render yourself irrelevant.”

“Hire people who are smarter than you, and give them the opportunity to step in and do bigger and better things than you did,” he said on the TRENDS stage.

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