Dive Brief:
- According to the most recent CBRE Investor Survey and Market Outlook, senior housing occupancy is at its highest level since 2007, and 2015 was a record year for sales and institutional transactions.
- At the end of 2012, there were 22,975 units under construction. As of the fourth quarter of 2015, that number had grown to 48,903. Much of this supply has an average development period of 12 to 15 months.
- The CBRE Investor Survey of seniors housing investors, developers and brokers is an attempt to identify key trends so as to better understand the state of the evolving seniors housing and care market.
Dive Insight:
The senior housing sector's record-setting year in 2015 saw 514 institutional transactions closed and $18.7 billion in institutional sales, despite a slowdown in the fourth quarter, according to the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry (NIC). The decrease in growth rate is consistent with the overall U.S. commercial real estate market trend.
As an alternative away from senior-specific housing, the aging in place movement has provided an increasingly popular option.
According to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, 5.5 million older households include at least one person who has trouble getting around on their own, but they do not have accessibility modifications, such as no-step entryways and ramps. The Joint Center has determined that this has created, at the very least, a $13 billion opportunity for the remodeling industry.
