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Senior living REITs are using their scale and relationships to notch off-market acquisitions while new development remains tough to pencil.
In the first quarter of 2026, Welltower (NYSE: WELL) sourced 37 of its 41 transactions in off-market arrangements, while approximately two-thirds of Ventas’ (NYSE: VTR) $1.7 billion senior living investments were sourced off-market.
Fueling this trend of off-market senior living mergers and acquisitions are data science and machine learning platforms. While Welltower started its data science effort in 2018, building off of a data science team that was created in 2015.
Multiple REITs and senior living operator have publicly touted their respective data models as a differentiator that is helping them secure new investments.
While off-market deals remain a staple of senior living mergers and acquisitions, the speed at which they are currently closing is noteworthy. As institutional investors leverage increasingly powerful data platforms, competition for stabilized properties will continue to intensify, even though off-market success often depends more on longstanding personal relationships than on traditional bidding wars.
This comes as private capital continues to pour into the sector. JLL data shows that private capital accounted for 50% of transactions by volume in 2025, while REITs and public buyers accounted for 32% of transactions, up from 24% in 2024.
In this week’s SHN+ Update, I analyze recent off-market investment activity by Welltower and Ventas and offer the following takeaways:
- Why senior living REITs are dominating the senior living M&A landscape in 2026
- How data and machine learning platforms are quickening these companies’ transaction pace
- How a lack of development is leading to more competition for deals
Data science, machine learning make the difference
REITs have come to dominate the senior living transaction market in the last few years.
Welltower said last month that since the end of 2020, the REIT has completed $42 billion of gross investments. That total includes 1,705 acquired properties representing 129,000 units of senior housing. Likewise, Ventas has in the last year and a half alone notched $5.7 billion of U.S. senior housing investments.
Leaders of both companies have outlined active plans ahead to continue growing via acquisitions as long as they can source them at a good price relative to replacement cost.
While both companies link their ability to source off-market transactions to sophistication in their back offices and technology that helps them find and qualify deals faster than ever before, each takes a distinctly different approach in how to source future deals.
By using the company’s proprietary machine learning and data science platform, Welltower has reduced its transaction timeline from initial engagement to closing to just a few weeks, which is far lower than the five- to 10-month timeline Welltower dealt with in the past.
Welltower has consistently sourced acquisition opportunities in off-market arrangements, with 90% to 95% of recent investment activity coming from off-market deals in the last three years, Welltower Co-President and Chief Investment Officer Nikhil Chaudhri told me.
The Toledo, Ohio-based REIT’s platform is led by a team of Ph.D computer scientists, engineers and mathematicians and analyzes over 10 million “micro-markets” across the country by leveraging “a unique and non-replicable dataset” based on over 100 senior living operators and two decades of experience in the sector.
In the senior living industry, I often hear about “speed to lead” in regard to an operator’s ability to connect with prospective residents inquiring about moving into a community. This growing pace of senior living transaction activity has me thinking about “speed to deal,” with data and analytics being the differentiator for large companies.
This “speed-to-deal” transaction allows companies like Welltower and Ventas to have an advantage in sourcing, evaluating and transacting on new opportunities.
This is the case for Welltower, responding more quickly to sellers while also identifying assets to “see if a transaction is palatable,” Chaudhri said.
“[Through] our ability to pay a fair price and to move incredibly fast, with a stellar balance sheet and track record such that no one questions our ability to close or transact in a high quality manner, we are able to have our pick of opportunities,” Chaudhri told me.
In other words, if multiple well-capitalized groups are circling the same assets, Welltower wins by being the fastest and most credible buyer.
This makes the relationships between buyers and sellers even more important as the timeline for scouting and finalizing new deals is speeding up. In today’s environment, a drawn-out process for acquiring a stabilized property or portfolio feels increasingly outdated as data and analytics platforms speed up the process for both buyers and sellers.
Chicago-based Ventas has invested over $5.7 billion in senior living acquisitions since 2024, bringing on over 17,000 units to the company’s growing senior housing operating portfolio (SHOP) in the last two years. Of the $1.7 billion of new investments closed in 2026, “more than 90%” were “relationship driven,” according to Ventas Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer Justin Hutchens, while 40% of those closed transactions were completed with repeat sellers.
Ventas leadership was unavailable for comment at the time of publication on Thursday.
Relationship-driven deals can create repeat transaction opportunities and provide for quicker underwriting, as seen in the recent Ventas acquisition of the Revel Communities platform when the REIT took on 11 luxury independent living properties. The portfolio acquisition was “a really exciting growth investment opportunity,” and one that was sourced off-market, Hutchens said during the company’s first-quarter earnings.
Ventas leans on its Ventas Operational Insights (OI) analytics platform, which launched in 2020, to improve performance, analyzing data to identify new acquisition opportunities while also supporting the REIT’s group of over 40 senior living operating partners.
Sonida Senior Living (NYSE: SNDA) also touted its data model being “central” to its ability to continue future growth. Since 2024, Sonida has acquired 92 communities, expanding from 61 communities to 153 today.
Data capabilities are becoming “increasingly important” for “all stakeholders,” whether an operating partner or investors, and these transactions will be strengthened by reliable, accurate data, NIC Senior Principal of Capital Strategies Nicole Funari told me.
“All parties need to be committed to a solid data platform for managing quality and financial reporting, but also in forecasting and predictive modeling,” Funari said.
If these data platforms work as they are purported to, this effectively changes the dynamics around senior living mergers and acquisitions from who can bid the highest to who can decide the fastest. And to that end, I think REITs and other large companies have the advantage.
Lack of development drives competition
Senior living transaction volume reached $24 billion in 2025, representing the highest level of investment in the past decade, according to JLL.
At the same time, occupied senior housing units climbed by 3,000 in Q1 2026 to reach 637,000. But senior living inventory growth hit a record low of 0.4% and construction volume plummeted to levels not seen since 2012, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC).
This comes as new construction starts have declined 77% in primary markets and 62% in secondary markets over the last decade, JLL construction data shows.
This development dearth “has driven competition” for existing senior living stock, Funari told me. While construction remains low and demographic demand for senior living continues to grow, companies are “looking for any advantage” in the marketplace. That also includes relying on existing relationships, Funari added.
“When you have the influence and capital strength to do so, it makes sense,” Funari told me.
Competition for senior living assets will remain “fierce” in 2026, led by new entrants into the space. Last week, Chiron Real Estate (NYSE: XRN) announced a $425 million investment in three luxury properties and Healthpeak’s Janus Living (NYSE: JAN) announced $400 million in letters-of-intent for new senior living acquisitions. According to PERE, Invesco also recently secured a majority stake in a $2.04 billion Class A senior housing portfolio.
This builds off activity last year including the Apollo (NYSE: APO) acquisition of Bridge Investment Group, an owner of 62 senior living communities in a $1.5 billion deal as part of a broader real estate portfolio.
Leaders of LTC Properties (NYSE: LTC) expect the REIT to have 11 senior housing operating partners by the end of the second quarter. This year, LTC has completed $108 million in SHOP acquisitions across three transactions.
Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer David Boitano said “a number” of SHOP transactions have come off-market, showing LTC’s “benefit of our relationship focus,” during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. LTC has signed letters-of-intent to purchase off-market third quarter acquisitions of $90 million, with $500 million of opportunities available, Boitano said.
“LTC has spent 18 months building a platform designed to execute with speed and certainty,” Boitano said.
Competition for new senior living assets is causing some institutional groups to get more choosy about the deals they want to take on. For example, Omega Healthcare Investors (NYSE: OHI) is having to “be more selective, more creative” to find off-market deals, according to President Matthew Gourmand.
“From that standpoint, I think we’re in a pretty good place going forward. But nonetheless, it is pretty competitive,” Gourmand said.
But as Chaudhri notes, he believes Welltower is not “really exposed to this new competition,” given its data capabilities and years-long relationships with sellers.
The imbalance between supply and demand is unlikely to change soon. Combined with the growing reliance on data platforms, the senior living investment landscape is moving faster and becoming more selective simultaneously.
Off-market deal scouting, data capabilities and maintaining long-standing relationships are the standard for competing in senior living investment in 2026.