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Life plan community occupancy was 85.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 0.3 percentage points from the third quarter and 1.4 percentage points from a pandemic low seen in the first two quarters of the year, according to data from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care.
The rate, which factors in occupancy at the 1,104 life plan communities — also known as continuing care retirement communities, or CCRCs — in the 99 primary and secondary markets tracked by NIC MAP Vision, is down 5.9 percentage points from the pre-pandemic occupancy rate for CCRCs in the first quarter of 2020 but equal to the level seen in the fourth quarter of 2020. The data were shared in the most recent issue of specialty investment bank Ziegler’s Senior Living Finance Z-News newsletter.
Overall, entrance fee communities, with an occupancy rate of 88%, fared better than rental ones, which had a rate of 81.7%. The “more robust” overall occupancy performance of the entrance fee communities was due to the fact that those types of communities have a greater proportion of independent living units, where occupancy is higher compared with the assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing segments, according to NIC.
Also, nonprofit communities as a whole (87.1%) saw higher occupancy than for-profit ones (81.7%) in the quarter.
The regions with the strongest CCRC occupancy rates were the Pacific, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where occupancy ranged from 88.5% to 88.2%, NIC said. The Southwest region saw the weakest CCRC occupancy, at 80.8%.
