Record demand for senior housing was seen in 2022

The senior housing occupancy rate increased 0.9 percentage points from 82.1 percent in third quarter 2022 to 83.0 percent in fourth quarter 2022, according to data from NIC MAP Vision. The occupancy rate has increased 5.2 percentage points from a pandemic low of 77.8 percent in second quarter 2021.

The senior housing occupancy rate increased for the sixth consecutive quarter due to continued strong demand that outpaced inventory growth. Because new inventory has been added during the pandemic, however, the occupancy rate has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels. On the inventory side, about 3,300 units were added within the 31 NIC MAP Primary Markets during this quarter, while more than 8,600 units were absorbed on a net basis. This robust demand led to a new record high total number of occupied units: within the NIC MAP Primary Markets, the total number of occupied units exceeded 574,900, surpassing its pre-pandemic first quarter 2020 level by nearly 7,000 units.

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