Brookdale Senior Living CEO Nick Stengle believes that a leaner portfolio and a focus on supply-demand, critical mass and operational excellence are top ways to bring the company into its next evolution.
Earlier this week, the Brentwood, Tennessee-based senior living operator said it expected to notch revenue per available rooms (RevPAR) growth of between 8% and 9%, along with adjusted earnings before taxes, earnings before taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $502 million to $516 million this year. By comparison, Brookdale reported RevPAR growth of 5.7% and adjusted EBITDA of $458 million for the entirety of 2025.
At the same time, Brookdale is continuing to pare down its portfolio as it has intermittently for the last nine years. The senior living operator’s total portfolio count registered at 584 communities across 41 states as of its most recent count, but that number is set dip to 517 later this year, Stengle said during a special meeting with Brookdale management, investors and analysts Friday.
As of the fourth quarter of 2025, Brookdale’s same-community average occupancy sat at 83.5%, representing a gain over the company’s same-community average occupancy of 82.3% in the third quarter of 2025.
Looking ahead to 2026, the company is “sprinting” to boost its average occupancy level to 84.5% – its average just before the Covid-19 pandemic – and beyond that, back to its best-ever occupancy rate of 89%, which it last reported in 2013.
Stengle, who Brookdale named to the CEO last October, sees three “key levers” the company must pull to get there: taking advantage of current supply-demand dynamics, achieving critical mass in its market density and notching better operational results.
Brookdale also now owns more than three-fourths of its portfolio, a strength when coupled with the fact that it is also the largest operator of senior living by total unit count.
“We are fundamentally an operating company … however, we’re built upon a foundation of real estate,” he said during the presentation Friday.
Screenshot via Brookdale Senior Living Investor Day presentationTaking advantage of supply-demand dynamics
In order to succeed, Brookdale must serve the millions of baby boomers moving into senior housing communities in the years to come.
The company cited U.S. Census Bureau projections showing that the number of Americans age 80 and older will increase 55% in the next decade. Each year, more than one million older adults will enter the company’s target demographic.
Slightly more than half of Brookdale residents move into the operator’s communities between the ages of 80 and 90. The company’s current resident average age is just over 83 years.
A lack of new development is constraining the number of new senior living openings in 2026. According to NIC MAP data, new senior living inventory growth remained below 1% of total inventory in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Meanwhile, demand for senior living is steadily rising as older adults age and new community openings remain scarce. According to NIC data, the industry is on track to face a demand-supply shortfall of 100,000 units by 2027 and 400,000 units by 2035.
Looking down the road, Brookdale management believes that the current level of market demand will support a higher revenue per occupied room (RevPOR), and will in turn accelerate adjusted EBITDA.
Every gain of 100 basis points of occupancy yields about $23 million in additional senior housing operating income on a same-community basis, according to the operator’s investor day presentation. Similarly every 1% point of RevPOR growth above expense inflation yields about $27 million in additional senior housing operating income on a same-community basis.
“Fundamentally, the occupancy growth is coming from the [demand-supply dynamics,” Stengle said. “We definitely feel it. We’re seeing it already.”
Critical mass in local markets
As Brookdale management has long said, the operator is seeking to “win locally” in its markets across the country.
In 2026, the company is seeking to increase its “critical mass” in its operational strongholds, which include Austin, Texas; Kansas City; Los Angeles; and Portland, Oregon; among many others. Today, more than half of the age- and income-qualified older adults in the U.S. live within a 30-minute drive to a Brookdale community.
“We are looking for targeted acquisitions in markets where we already exist,” Stengle said. “We’re not planting new flags in new markets. We’re not expanding geographically.”
The operator clusters its communities by care type, price and location and shares resources in order to take advantage of its density in a market. Instead of “winning individual communities,” the company’s management seeks to “win entire markets” via this approach.
“We want to provide optionality to someone who is seeking senior living,” Stengle said. “We want to give them options on price point. We want to give them options on the care type they want … and we want to cover all of those needs as best as we can.”
This approach also lets Brookdale cluster its leaders and staff to flex from one community to another as needed.
“This is the beauty of having a company like ours,” Stengle said. “We can deploy recruiting support if there’s a staffing issue. We can deploy culinary support if there’s a dining issue. We can deploy asset management support if there’s a CapEx deployment-type issue, or whatever the case may be.”
Stengle compared the company’s growth strategy in its markets to filling up a bingo card.
“We want to fill that bingo card even where we feel we are winning,” he said. “We want to fully complete that bingo card and fill that one void that might exist, no matter what form it might take.”
Brookdale also is planning to implement new sales incentives in its communities that are “bespoke to the market.”
“It’s a community-based program. It does have a referral component if they refer to a sister Brookdale community,” Stengle added.
Operating company built on real estate foundation
As the owner of the majority of its portfolio, Stengle and the company’s other leaders have built in more flexibility to directly control outcomes in the operator’s communities. In fact, Brookdale is the third-largest owner of senior living real estate in the U.S., only behind real estate investment trusts (REITs) Ventas (NYSE: VTR) and Welltower (NYSE: WELL).
Senior living management companies might only get a “sliver” of the value of a community in the end. The “real stays with the owner of the real estate … as NOI grows,” he said.
Last year, Brookdale reorganized its portfolio into six regions that act as individual operating companies. Six vice presidents lead operations in the markets and lead a regional team that represents “all key functions,” including sales, dining, memory care and workforce management.
The company also has a newly refreshed management team that not only includes a new CEO, Stengle; but a new COO – and its first in a decade – Mary Sue Patchett.
In addition to boosting owned real estate, the company is offloading certain communities where it does not feel like it can play to its strengths.
“We are in a period of doing a little more rationalization, really getting out of some non-core-type assets, and pinning down those 517 – owned and leased – consolidated communities that we will continue to own [and] operate,” Stengle said.
