Continuing care retirement / life plan communities continued to outpace non-CCRCs in senior living occupancy in the third quarter, with the independent living and assisted living segments within CCRCs showing the biggest occupancy gains, according to a data analysis from specialty investment bank Ziegler.
Based on NIC MAP data from more than 1,164 not-for-profit and for-profit entrance-fee and rental CCRCs, the communities’ collective independent living segment had the highest occupancy (90.5%) in the third quarter, followed by their collective assisted living (87.5%) and memory care (86.5%) segments.
Not-for-profit CCRCs also had higher occupancy rates than for-profit CCRCs across all regions of the country, except the Pacific region. The largest differences in third-quarter occupancy between not-for-profit and for-profit CCRCs were in the Mid-Atlantic states (5.4 percentage points), followed by the Northeast (4.9 percentage points), and the South and West North Central regions, each of which reported 4 percentage points.
The Mid-Atlantic (92.2%), Northeast (91.5%) and Pacific (89.1%) regions reported the strongest occupancy rates among not-for-profit CCRCs in the third quarter, whereas the Southwest region had the lowest occupancy among not-for-profit CCRCs, at 86.1%.
On the for-profit side, the Pacific (90.9%), Mountain (86.9%) and Mid-Atlantic (86.8%) regions had the strongest occupancy rates, with the Southwest again lagging with the lowest occupancy rate, at 82.1%.
Breaking down the data another way, entrance-fee retirement communities had higher occupancy rates than rental CCRCs across all regions. The most significant differences were reported for the West North Central region, where entrance-fee CCRC occupancy was 5.4 percentage points higher than rental CCRC occupancy, followed by the Mountain (4.9 percentage points difference) and the Southeast (4.8 percentage points) regions.
The Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Pacific regions had the strongest entrance-fee CCRC occupancy rates, all higher than 90%. Rental CCRCs in those three regions also had the highest occupancy rates, running from 87.4% to 88.7%.
CCRCs also reported higher monthly fees than non-CCRCs, with CCRCs recording the largest annual rate growth in their assisted living (5.3%) and memory care segments (5.8%).
The non-CCRC independent living segment reported the highest year-over-year inventory growth (3.4%), followed by memory care (2%).
Whether in a CCRC or not, memory care and skilled nursing saw the highest occupancy gains, whereas independent living, overall, had the smallest occupancy gains in the quarter.
