By Steve Moran

If you are pondering any of these questions, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing’s (NIC’s) fall conference will feature industry insiders and experts who will help you figure them out.

1. Is senior living still a good investment?

Staffing is a major headache, and occupancy is a struggle. And that’s not all — the cost of everything is going up. There continues to be lots of capital in the space, but does it really make sense?

2. Is the active adult exuberance rational?

In public, it seems as if everyone in senior living is head over heels about the growing active adult segment. And yet, in private conversations, many people are not so sure. They talk about how the same thing was true a few years ago with memory care, when the consensus was that you could not build too many memory care units. And that, of course, turned out to not be true.

3. What does the current economic situation mean to senior living? What can we expect?

I am not sure you will find a single right answer, but you will be better prepared to think about this question with respect to your part of the senior living economic ecosystem.

4. What is senior living today?

This is a very real question. Are we care-centered? Lifestyle-centered? Can we expand our appeal? Should we? Should senior living include things like home care and naturally occurring retirement communities? Are there things senior living should be that have not even been invented?

The answer to this big question will profoundly impact older people in North America.

5. What are industry CEOs thinking?

You may agree or disagree, but what they think — and in turn, what they do — has a profound impact on the senior living sector. What do they see as the biggest opportunities and the most challenging problems?

6. How do senior living organizations grow their bottom line?

The easy answers are, of course, to increase occupancy and reduce expenses, but how do you do that? And maybe, more importantly, are there ways to increase top-line revenues that will flow to the bottom line?

7. What do I need to know about ESC?

Perhaps the first thing you want to know is what ESC even means.  I am sure you know, but just in case you don’t, it stands for environmental, social, and governance. Investors are increasingly paying attention to where companies they invest in stand on environmental, social, and governance issues. This is something that most companies have paid very little attention to in the past. Does it matter? What do I need to know?

There is so much more. I hope to see you there in a couple of months.

Disclosure: Senior Living Foresight is spreading the news about the NIC fall conference and, in return, is receiving passes to it.