Senior Housing Shortage Projected To Hit A Million Units

The cost of the housing needed for the rising number of American senior citizens has hit 13 figures.

As the first of 70 million baby boomers turn 80 this year, development of housing built to cater to the elderly is slowing sharply, creating a growing chasm between demand and supply of senior housing, according to NIC Map, which tracks fundamentals in the senior living sector.

Senior housing occupancy has reached 90% nationwide, and just to maintain that level of availability, more than $1T would need to be spent by 2050, according to a NIC Map report released this week.

“The scale of the need is significant, but it will not be addressed by any single source of capital or single development strategy,” NIC Map CEO Arick Morton said in a statement. “Operators, developers, lenders and institutional investors will all have a role to play.”

Within the next 15 years, NIC Map expects 13 million additional people will elect to live in senior housing.

Demand in the sector has caught the eyes of investors, as those who anticipated this phenomenon, known as the “silver tsunami,” have been profiting handsomely.

Senior housing generated a 10.6% one-year total return in 2025, making it the best-performing asset class in commercial real estate. That was more than twice the overall average of 4.9%, according to the report, which cited the NCREIF Property Index.

But developers haven’t responded in kind. Construction starts have plummeted 67% from roughly 30,000 units to 10,000 between 2021 and 2025, according to NIC Map.

The industry would need to add 578,000 units by 2030 and more than 1 million by 2035 to keep up with demand, the report said. That would mean building roughly 140,000 additional units by 2027 and maintaining about a 100,000-unit annual pace after that, according to the report.

The significant financial need for the sector also includes updating existing properties — more than 2 in 5 units are older than 25 years.

“Two years ago, the data pointed to a growing imbalance between senior housing supply and demand,” Morton said. “Today, that imbalance is even greater. Demand is strengthening as construction slows, widening the gap between the senior housing available today and what our aging population will need in the years ahead.”