Chart of the Day: Age-Restricted Housing’s Market Share in Colorado

In Colorado, the market share for all types of age-restricted senior housing and care is nearly 17%, with affordable housing and skilled nursing as the most prevalent settings for seniors age 65 and older, according to Boulder-based consulting firm The Highland Group Inc.

Statewide, 83.1% of all 65+ households live in regular mixed-age housing, according to The Highland Group’s analysis of the Colorado senior housing and care market. Given this, the market share for age-restricted housing then becomes 16.9%.

With about 71,481 households living in age-restriced housing or care settings, almost half are concentrated in subsidized senior apartments or skilled nursing.

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Subsidized senior apartments have the largest share, with 4.3% of households age 65+ living in these settings. While a majority of the units for this housing type are in buildings from the 1960s and 1970s, according to the Highland Group, about 7,000 units were built during the late 1990s and present.

Skilled nursing, a typically older housing set built mostly during the 1960s and 1970s, was the second highest setting for Colorado’s 65+ market living in age-restricted housing, with 3.9%.

A key dynamic for the skilled nursing sector, notes The Highland Group, is that about 76% of skilled nursing stays are paid by the government and only 24% are paid privately at this time. 

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Chart credit: The Highland Group, July 2013

The remaining supply of age-restricted housing in the last five rows is largely market-rate products that are a lot newer, compared to the two top-ranking environments. 

Some distinctions include a separation between assisted living that is non-memory care and memory care assisted living listed at the bottom of the chart, which Highland Group notes as a newer sub-set of assisted living that existed only since the mid-to-late 1990s. 

Also of note in the analysis of Colorado’s senior housing are market-rate age-qualified apartments. While a particularly scarce product in Colorado, the multifamily industry is just beginning to be intrigued by this market.

Written by Jason Oliva

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