Inside 3 Big Senior Living Sales Trends Of 2025

In 2025, senior living companies are gearing up for a big sales year in which they hope to add occupancy and new revenue to their operations.

Earlier this week, we published a story detailing what 10 sales leaders from companies including LCS, Discovery Senior Living and Watermark Retirement Communities are expecting in the year ahead. While all of the respondents were optimistic about the coming 12 months, they also believe that senior living operators have their work cut out for them.

I was particularly struck by the words of Legend Senior Living Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Christy Van Der Westhuizen, who said that the industry must prioritize wellness, community engagement and innovative tech in order to grow for the future. But she also warned that senior living operators must not lose sight of what makes senior living unique.

“The key is to shift the conversation away from fear-based messaging and toward hope, health, and happiness. Operators who embrace this approach and prioritize meaningful, personalized connections will be the ones who thrive,” she said. “But we must also be cautious. If we allow our communities to become commoditized or lose our personal touch, we risk losing the very essence of what makes senior living so impactful.”

Top of mind for senior living salespeople is the fact that the oldest baby boomers are turning 79 in 2025, placing them at the industry’s doorstep. After serving the Greatest Generation for years, the senior living industry is now pivoting to the wants and needs of the boomer generation. And, for the first time I can remember, operators are now even thinking about the generation that will come after the boomers, Gen X.

At the same time, many operators are looking for ways to use new tech like AI in their processes, with big hopes for 2025. While generative AI like ChatGPT hasn’t yet found widespread use among senior living operators, many are hopeful that it will help power chatbots and other automated marketing functions in the near future. But deeper than that, companies are deploying automated analysis to sort through and qualify sales leads in a bigger way than perhaps ever before.

Above all else, senior living sales leaders are emphasizing the fundamentals of selling. Follow-up, creative engagement and converting tours are the bread-and-butter tools that operators must use in 2025.

In this members-only SHN+ Update, I analyze the responses from sales leaders and recent trends to offer the following takeaways:

• How operators are gearing up to serve the boomers at their doorstep
• Tech and AI operators hope can attract the boomers
• Why success in 2025 likely hinges on basic sales fundamentals

Boomers at the industry’s doorstep, industry ponders Gen X

In 2025, the oldest baby boomers turn 79. Catering to their wants and needs is a critical objective for the senior living industry.

Senior living residents often finance their move into a community using the sale of their home. As of the second quarter of 2024, boomers held as much as half of the nation’s home equity, according to Federal Reserve data. But they likely won’t move far to move into senior living – a recent survey from LendingTree showed more than three-quarters, 82%, were not considering moving far from home in 2025.

As Van Der Westhuizen noted, operators can entice the boomers with “vibrant, purpose-driven living.” Indeed, wellness is a big focus for senior living salespeople this year.

But that is not always how they perceive senior living. There is still a stigma hanging over the industry, and that is why Watermark Retirement Communities National Director of Sales Dawn Marie Trombetta believes operators must emphasize reducing “misconceptions surrounding senior living communities.”

“It starts with marketing and messaging that shifts the narrative from clinical or institutional to one that highlights the vibrant, personalized experiences available,” she told SHN. “This is then supported by a prospect-centered sales process.”

Additionally, communities that don’t cater to their desires for independence and financial flexibility may well find themselves missing out to those that do.

Driving much of the decision-making process for senior living are the adult children of prospective residents, who in 2025 are members of Gen X and the millennial generations. That is why some have already begun thinking about the so-called “MTV Generation.” According to a recent Mather survey, members of Gen X are less interested in trendy wellness programs and many are more stressed than the generation that came before them.

Operators seek to use new tech in sales, with a focus on AI

Another trend among the senior living sales leaders who spoke with Senior Housing News was that many of them see AI as an important tool for the future. Multiple companies noted that they see AI-powered chatbots and ChatGPT as an important tool for capturing leads and engaging new customers.

If you read the top trends piece I wrote at the start of the year, then you probably know I am still skeptical of generative AI like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its problems with hallucination and basic errors, not to mention occasional outages.

But I also see senior living operators using AI in a deeper, more analytical way, and I think those practices hold more promise for future sales efforts. Heading into this year, senior living operators were already shifting their tech budgets in favor of new processes and programs like AI and electronic health data.

One such company is LCS, which has spent recent years building out a data operation and platform to inform its next steps. At the heart of the company’s data platform is AI and lead scoring that can help “empower sales associates to focus their efforts on high-priority prospects” and advance them “through the sales funnel more effectively and at a faster pace,” said LCS Chief Sales Officer Jim Pusateri.

That is also what Optima Living Co-Founder and Principal Karim Kassam predicts ahead. Looking into 2025, he sees more of an emphasis on “data-driven selling.”

“Sales teams will rely more on CRM analytics, lead scoring, and behavioral insights to prioritize follow-ups and improve conversion rates,” he said.

The bottom line is that senior living companies in 2025 see a real need to innovate with technology – and “this is the year that we need to implement new tactics with the technology we have in front of us,” said Discovery Senior Living Senior Vice President of Sales Lou Maranto.

Focusing on the fundamentals

In the words of Heritage Communities Chief Marketing Officer Lacy Jungman, tours are the “Super Bowl” of senior living sales. That is why companies are drilling down on sales basics – speed-to-lead, follow-up, personalization, transparency – to secure tours and ultimately move-ins to increase occupancy in 2025.

“Research, phone calls, database management, emails, texts – they’re not as fun as the tour and face-to-face interactions, but they are required to move occupancy,” Jungman said. “The communities who master follow up are the ones who see results.”

Anecdotally, I have witnessed firsthand in recent weeks the lengths that some companies are willing to take in order to secure a move-in. In 2021, I mystery shopped more than 20 senior living communities in the Chicago area and inquired about discounts. Three weeks ago, one of the communities I called was still reaching out to me over email, and even making personalized videos for me. That means I have been in the company’s database for almost four years, with personalized follow-up still ongoing.

Based on responses to our sales trend story, I think this kind of personalized, long-term follow-up will be part of many companies’ strategies in 2025. And indeed, Kassam noted he was seeing “longer decision-making cycles” among prospects and families, “requiring a more structured, relationship-driven follow-up process.”

To Claiborne Senior Living Vice President of Marketing Brooke Saxon-Spencer, speed in follow-up “may be the difference between securing a move-in or losing a prospect to a competitor.”

“With families making faster, more urgent decisions and expecting instant engagement, senior living sales teams must adopt a high-speed, high-touch approach to stay ahead,” she said.

As I wrote earlier this month, I also see a trend this year of operators doubling and tripling down on organic lead sources in an effort to distance themselves from paid third-party referral partners.

Jungman noted that she “expects to see the industry’s approach to third party referrals continue to shift” this year, adding that Heritage Communities has created its own contract for third-party paid referral partners “that highlight specific requirements of leads as well as payment terms.”

“For example, we no longer pay one lump sum for placement agency fees. Instead, fees are distributed into three monthly payments. If a resident moves out in month two, we won’t be paying the third installment as indicated in our terms,” she said. “We also own the lead, and will not pay referral fees, starting nine months after the referral is sent to us.”

Focusing on fundamentals to improve sales is of course not a new trend in senior living. But in 2025, it will take on a new importance as operators seek to add occupancy and win over a new generation of residents.

Tickets are still available for the Senior Housing News Sales and Marketing Conference on Feb. 18th and 19th in Bonita Springs, Florida. Hear insights like these and more from industry experts navigating the changing environment of senior living sales and marketing efforts.

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