The number of people over age 80 will increase from 14.7 million today to 18.8 million by 2030, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. - Getty Images
Before senior-housing developments are even finished being built, some older adults are already putting down deposits over fear that spots will be gone when they need it most.
With the oldest baby boomers on track to turn 80 in less than a year, finding a place to age in comfort and safety is coming into view for many. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the number of people over age 80 will increase from 14.7 million today to 18.8 million by 2030. The mean age for entering a senior-living care facility is 84, a study in JAMA Internal Medicine found.
“Older adults are moving into senior housing at a rapid pace, and that trend will continue given the wave of baby boomers and many more ‘solo agers’ who don’t have a caregiver to rely on as a safety net,” said Lisa McCracken, head of research and analytics for the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, or NIC. “The industry needs to ramp up development for supply to catch up with demand, but we don’t foresee any meaningful movement here in 2025 given current market conditions.”
Dwayne Clark, the chairman, chief executive and founder of Aegis Living, an assisted-living chain with 38 facilities and three more centers under development, also sees demand outweighing supply.
“There’s no housing because demand is outstripping any supply. People already are putting deposits on places. That option is not going to be available in two to three years,” Clark said. “There won’t be spots left.”
“Due to COVID-era interest-rate spikes, we’re not producing senior housing at the pace needed. We can’t build fast enough,” he added. “It takes five or six years from finding a site to opening a building. Even if interest rates changed today, we can’t build fast enough to satisfy demand.”
Aegis has about 3,000 residents and generates about $400 million in annual revenue. They do not accept insurance and residents pay 100% out of pocket.
More than 564,000 new senior-housing units are needed to meet demand by 2030, but only 191,000 will be added at current development rates, according to data service NIC MAP, which tracks data on the senior-housing industry. Units include independent living, assisted living, memory care and active adult housing.
The first quarter of 2025 set a record for the number of occupied senior-housing units, with nearly 621,000 units occupied compared to roughly 617,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024, NIC MAP said.
The pace of new senior-housing units and units under development was slower than historical norms in the first quarter of 2025. Senior-housing construction starts in the 31 markets analyzed were at 1,076 units, which marks the lowest count since the second quarter of 2009. The number of units under construction fell to roughly 19,500, the lowest level since 2013. NIC expects that the trend of limited new supply combined with strong demand will continue to drive the senior-housing occupancy rate up in the coming quarters.
“To really get explosive inventory we need ground-up development,” said Arick Morton, chief executive of NIC MAP. He added that high interest rates, tariffs affecting building materials and potential large-scale deportations disrupting the labor pool are all headwinds facing the industry.
Although completely new developments are costly to build, expansions of existing centers are more affordable and can offer some more housing supply until full-scale development takes off, Morton noted.
“The opportunity exists for the industry to expand existing product. We do have that pressure-relief valve,” he said.
To build economies of scale, housing owners are making acquisitions of existing facilities to build up their portfolios and spread costs over a wider number of units.
“It’s a very fragmented industry,” Morton said. “We’re absolutely seeing increases in competition for deals.”
For example, Welltower Inc. WELL, the largest senior-housing owner in the U.S., has been on a buying spree since COVID. Welltower has acquired more than $20 billion of real estate since the fourth quarter of 2020 at a 30% discount to replacement cost, the real-estate investment trust said in a press release. Welltower buys the properties for less than it would cost to build a new facility from scratch.
The company told investors last year that it planned to continue focusing its efforts on additional acquisitions rather than new development due to the current costs of capital and land. In a 2025 business update, Welltower said construction-loan rates were twice those available during the pre-COVID era.
Without massive construction efforts, the senior-housing shortage will force older adults to get creative about their housing and care needs. Seniors may have to relocate further away from their ideal locales to find housing, Morton said.
NIC MAP tracks occupancy rates in 31 primary markets across the country — and all markets are above 80% occupancy. For the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019, four markets surpassed 90% occupancy. The top three markets are Boston (90.7%), Baltimore (90.6%), and Cincinnati (90.2%). Miami fell to one of the lowest-occupancy markets (84.7%), joining Houston (84.7%) and Atlanta (83.9%), which remained in the bottom three from the fourth quarter of 2024.
Otherwise, without a boom in senior housing, older adults are going to be forced to find care somewhere else — likely at home with their family helping, which creates stress on the caregivers and impacts their own health, Aegis’s Clark noted.
