Less Rooms for Middle Income Seniors

Kathleen Steele Gaivin, McKnights Senior Living writer, reports that the market for middle income senior housing is shrinking. Senior housing investors poured a decade-high $24 billion into high-end, Class A, resort-like senior living communities. In 2025, affordable housing investments were supported by an estimated $25 billion in primarily Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity along with billions in federal grants, government-backed loans, and bond financing.1 But, not many investment dollars are targeting affordable senior housing for middle income Americans.

As the cost of living increases and the cost of development increases, there's either people who can afford really high end class A+ developments, and there's people who do not and rely upon Medicaid reimbursement for help going into these facilities. It's easy to cater to one of those two populations, because the money is there, but less so in the middle.

Rob Koonin, Polsinelli, a real estate practice firm.

Koonin further commented that private investors and real estate investment firms are aiming mainly for the upper tier of the investment class who are looking for private-pay, $12,000 to $18,000 per month units. As baby boomers age, the middle income affordable senior housing problem worsens. In a 2019 NIC-funded study, 54 percent of middle-income seniors may need financial assistance for housing by 2029. NIC is the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care.