Senior housing occupancy climbs in third quarter 2021

Senior housing occupancy increased in the third quarter of 2021 to 80.1 percent, according to new NIC MAP® data, powered by NIC MAP Vision. This is a 1.4 percentage point increase from its pandemic-related low of 78.7 percent in the second quarter.

A significant rebound in demand and modest increase in supply contributed to the occupancy rate increase. Demand increased by 12,318 units in NIC MAP’s Primary Markets, the strongest unit increase since NIC MAP Vision began reporting the data in 2005. At the same time, inventory increased by 3,441 units — the smallest unit-count increase since the first quarter of 2019 — while the number of units under construction were the fewest since 2015.

“Notably, senior housing construction starts amounted to only 1.9 percent of the existing inventory in the third quarter on a rolling four-quarter basis, one of the lowest rates since 2011,” said Beth Burnham Mace, NIC’s chief economist. “Industry leaders should k