The pandemic is upending the seniors housing industry and causing baby boomers to rethink how they want to live out their retirement years, according to a Commercial Observer article Tuesday.
The story addressed the increased scrutiny nursing homes and assisted living operators in particular have received as positive cases of COVID-19 have risen within these facilities. The piece also noted that investors have two immediate financial concerns about senior housing: the decline in enrollments and increased expenses to secure scarce face masks, gloves and other protective equipment for staff. For older adults who had been planning to downsize or take advantage of the social aspects of retirement community life, the timing hardly could be worse.
“People want to move in when they can use amenities,” Rick Swartz, a director in Cushman & Wakefield’s senior housing capital markets group, told the Commercial Observer. “They don’t want to be isolated in a unit, so they’ll wait until the building is able to operate on a more open basis.”
Although some analysts believe an uptick in demand will occur once pandemic-related restrictions loosen, others aren’t so sure. The article added that “the jarring uncertainty the pandemic brought to the housing market and the economy as a whole will make the sector reexamine how to make senior living profitable.”
