Ventas Cio Hutchens: Rising Occupancy Means Senior Living Must Evolve Beyond ‘old Standard’

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As demand for senior living surges and the rate of new community openings stagnates, operators are in 2026 moving closer to full occupancy. That means they must be at the top of their games.

In 2026, the oldest baby boomers turned 80 years old. In the coming decade and a half, millions of baby boomers will begin their senior living journeys. Between now and 2031, the number of Americans 80 and older is expected to grow 29%, far higher than the 4% growth rate for people 80 and older seen in the 5 years after the Great Financial Crisis.

In a nutshell, this moment is what senior living veterans like Ventas (NYSE: VTR) Chief Investment Officer and EVP of Senior Housing Justin Hutchens have spent their entire careers preparing for.

“I view the last 30 years of experience as a dress rehearsal for what’s about to come,” Hutchens said during a keynote panel at the Senior Housing News TRENDS Conference, held in Chicago this week. “We truly, truly have the demand at our doorstep.”

That demand is almost palpable in the company’s senior housing portfolio. Of the Chicago-based real estate investment trust’s (REIT) 807 same-store senior housing operating portfolio (SHOP) communities, about half have occupancy at or above 90%. Another 10% of the communities in the portfolio report occupancy rates nearing 100%.

Ventas uses a proprietary data analytics and insights platform to help get the right operators managing the right assets in the right markets. Hutchens “knows from experience” that senior living operators in 2026 are spinning multiple plates and allocating resources to improvement and could use the help of a larger partner to improve.

The REIT also has refreshed about 400 communities in the last few years to position them to appeal to the incoming boomers and their families.

Hutchens, who likened himself to “an operator in REIT’s clothing” having worked many different roles during his time in operations, believes it’s an exciting time for senior living companies. But operators can’t just throw open their doors and rest on their laurels and expect that residents will move in.

As more communities approach full occupancy, “the old standard” of senior living won’t be enough to achieve the kind of results that leaders of their partners like Ventas want to see. The rising tide of occupancy is also raising the bar for companies that serve senior living residents and work with larger REIT partners.

“The new standard is really to achieve zero lost revenue days, or something close to that,” he said on the TRENDS stage. “[Good operators] wake up every day concerned about the well-being of seniors and the well-being of their staff … and that is combined with really good analytics, measuring the business, setting goals and pushing the team to be focused on retention strategies for staff and senior management.”

Investing in a 24/7 business

As senior living operators well know, senior living operations don’t stop. Operators must mind their staff and residents during every minute of every hour, and they can’t let up for even a moment.

Hutchens said he and Ventas are “respectful of the fact that this is a 24/7 business that involves people all the way around, and some with some very significant needs and very qualified staff attending to those needs.”

REITs can play a unique role supporting senior living communities. Ventas’ slate of support is powered in part by Ventas OI, the company’s asset management platform. On the asset side, the platform helps the REIT make better decisions regarding NOI-generatic CapEx and onboard new operators, among other functions. It also helps operators hone performance with insights and intelligence regarding pricing, real-time sales reporting and anonymous portfolio benchmarking.

For example, the company’s 50 operating partners can use the platform to analyze all of their competitors within a 15-minute car ride or balance affordability of senior living unit rental rates with the need to make a margin.

Data from the company’s similar operators are pooled into anonymous databases that they can use to benchmark their progress against the rest of the pack in real time. Datapoints include leading indicators regarding inquiries, tours and move-outs, among many others.

Ventas’ operator platform is built in such a way that it can work for companies with community counts in the hundreds and single digits alike.

“We’ve really worked on the rules of engagement to ensure that the seven-community operator can have the same successful experience with us as the operator that has 200,” Hutchens said. “You have to have a platform that can accommodate that, and I think that’s the competitive moat. It’s something that we’ve been working on for years, and it’s something that is going to be really important for long-term holders of senior housing.”

Growth strategy built on relationships

REITs such as Ventas have another built-in advantage in that they are typically more focused, long-term owners of real estate. Hutchens said that the majority of communities in the U.S. are owned by short-term players such as private equity. Despite their recent SHOP-ping sprees, public REITs still own a relative minority of the existing senior living communities in the U.S.

Hutchens believes REITs will play a big role in the new era of boomers demand and short supply. Like other leaders, he believes that some buyers of real estate today could become sellers to REITs in the not-too-distant future if the timing is right.

That fits into Ventas’ strategy of getting close with potential future partners to secure off-market acquisition opportunities down the road, sometimes only many years into the relationship.

The company has sourced the majority of its deals in the last couple of years in off-market transactions, and Hutchens believes that is partly due to how the company delivers in its dealmaking.

“Our handshake means something,” Hutchens said. “This isn’t a game to us. It’s a long-term investment opportunity, and by managing the deals the right way, we’ve had so many repeat opportunities, not just with operators, but also with sellers.”

One example of this strategy at work lies in the REIT’s $540 million deal to acquire the majority ownership stake of Revel Communities’ 11-property portfolio from The Wolff Company. At the time, Wolff was seeking a recap, not a sale.

“I actually met them through a friend of mine who called me and said, ‘I have a friend at Wolff Company who’s trying to do a recap, and I encouraged them to talk to Ventas because maybe the recap is not the answer.’ … and so they called us, and we ended up really hitting it off,” Hutchens said. “That was about as off-market as an off-market deal gets.”

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