Heritage Communities Advances Third-party Growth Push After Staffing Up

Heritage Communities has spent the last few years preparing for new growth, and in 2025 the company is planning to expand its third-party management business to capitalize on demand.

“We’ve scrubbed our policies to make sure they’re aligned with this growth so that it would not be disruptive to us,” Heritage Communities CEO Farhan Khan told Senior Housing News. “We’re going to be very measured in how much we take on.”

Last year, Heritage acquired its first segment of third-party management contracts after two decades of owning and operating its own communities, with plans to add up to 10 new third-party management contracts by the end of this year.

Leaders at Heritage have hired new staff to also prepare for the company’s growth push, bringing on new life enrichment, customer experience, community onboarding and sales and marketing leaders. Staffing remains the “most important” aspect of preparing the company for future growth, Khan added.

“We’ve put a lot more effort into training our executive directors and top leadership teams as well and that’s translated into giving our frontline leaders the ability to do their jobs better,” Khan said. “After that, everything follows and it’s important to preach the message of scalability.”

But seeking scalability will be done through finding like-minded capital partners while being ready in operations to support additional communities on the roster.

“It’s important to align ourselves with people that have similar values to us,” Khan said.

Omaha, Nebraska-based Heritage Communities has a portfolio of 19 senior living communities in four states, 17 of which are owner-operated and two under third-party management agreements.

Central to the company’s new staffing effort, Heritage recently welcomed a new vice president of operations from the tech and health care industries to bring a fresh perspective to the company’s existing communities.

In seeking third-party management growth, President Nate Underwood said Heritage seeks to find new opportunities in Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas to widen the company’s existing footprint. The company is targeting communities ranging between 80 to 100 units and above, with services including independent living, assisted living and memory care.

“We’re looking at these communities and we’d like to find ones that are well-run and are operating well to take them to the next level,” Underwood said. “But we’re very capable of getting into a community with reputational issues and turning them around.”

The company is also preparing to roll out a new dynamic pricing model to better capture revenue, a plan that will be coming later in the year. Recently, senior living operators have started on the dynamic pricing trend in a range of capacities.

Heritage will focus on getting its buildings in the high-80th percentile on occupancy to 95% and above, as operators look to be more strategic in their ability to drive census and create net operating income (NOI), Khan said.

“Generally, we’re very excited about what’s ahead in 2025 for us and more broadly for the industry, there’s some really good things happening on occupancy and demand,” Khan said.

The post Heritage Communities Advances Third-Party Growth Push After Staffing Up appeared first on Senior Housing News.