Occupancy Rates Moving in Both Favorable and Unfavorable Directions

As reported by Senior Housing News, data from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) shows that the third quarter occupancy rate of assisted living has increased to 86.6 percent from 86.5 percent during the second quarter—a move in a favorable direction.

Independent living, however, decreased to 90.5 percent in the third quarter—down slightly from 90.6 percent in the second quarter.

Overall, senior housing occupancy remained unchanged from quarter two to three at 88.8 percent. In addition to the occupancy rates, Senior Housing News breaks down the possible reasons for the change in an article published October 11, 2017.

Health Dimensions Group offers the following observations on senior housing occupancy:

• Although national occupancy remains low, occupancy varies tremendously by market. Occupancy of your individual market is a strong indicator if the market is saturated or can support additional products.
• Simply looking at county-level data is not sufficient as each county will have individual markets located within and overlapping into other counties. It is possible that counties with high occupancies can be saturated in certain areas and counties with low occupancies could have need in certain areas.
• Important factors that may explain low occupancies could include: attractiveness of the product, service availability, and price structure, as well as age of the community, as newer communities will still be in ramp-up and should be factored differently than older housing that has had sufficient time to fill.

For more information about senior living feasibility studies, marketing and sales audits, or other senior living consulting services, please visit www.healthdimensionsgroup.com/services/ or contact us at 763.537.5700 and info@hdgi1.com.

Authored by: Colin Higgins, Director, Analytics and Research, Health Dimensions Group