Overall, stakeholders serving and investing in senior housing and care have a positive outlook on the sector, according to a survey of attendees at the recent National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care 2024 Spring Conference in Dallas.
NIC asked its more than 1,800 conference attendees about their 2024 outlook for senior living and care. Overall, 79% of the more than 1,500 respondents said their outlook was somewhat positive (43%) or extremely positive (36%), whereas 16% responded that it was neutral, 3% said it was somewhat negative and 1% said it was extremely negative.
On a five-point scale, with 1 being extremely negative and 5 extremely positive, the least-positive outlooks were delivered by developers, who rated their outlook at 3.94; lenders, at 3.85; and investor/equity providers, at 4.05. In comparison, product/services companies rated their outlook an average of 4.32, transactional services providers rated it at an average of 4.23, operators/providers rated it as 4.15, and financial intermediaries came in at 4.12.
Given market conditions affecting access and cost of capital, the results were not surprising, Lisa McCracken, NIC head of research and analytics, wrote in a blog post. Yet despite those differences, she said, the outlook for the industry is fairly positive.
“This is an important finding, particularly given the current headwinds facing the sector,” McCracken wrote. “Clearly, conference attendees remain bullish on the sector despite some of today’s challenges.”
NIC intends to develop a sentiment index to assess outlooks over time as the long-term care industry moves forward in the months and years ahead. The organization next intends to survey conference attendees on industry sentiment at its meetings this fall and in the spring of 2025.
