June 10th, 2025
June 10th, 2025
How Frontier, American House, Aspenwood Are Retooling Incentives Amid Higher Demand
Demand for senior living is surging in 2025, and operators are deploying creative incentives and discounts to maximize their occupancy gains in the months ahead.
Last year, NIC data showed that, as senior living rent growth has slowed, the rate of steep discounts has picked up. At the same time, the new community construction has remained low.
While some operators have curtailed the kind of incentives they now offer versus a year ago, they are still wielding discounts as an effective tool to boost occupancy for underperforming communities and incentivize move-ins for specific types residents.
American House Senior Living, for instance, in May announced a new discount for teachers ranging from 5% to 10% lower rent for the duration of their stay, alongside a $200 donation to a school of their choice.
The incentive is part of the Southfield, Michigan-based company’s “Hometown Heroes” campaign, which is aimed at honoring and attracting community members such as firefighters, first responders educators, according to Shea Krause, vice president of sales and marketing. The new incentive also ties in with the company’s outreach efforts such as back to school backpack programs and donation drives.
“It’s part of our way of giving back to teachers to make wonderful retirement living accessible for them,” Krause told Senior Housing News.
Other operators are offering short-term incentives only as needed or cutting them back as much as possible as occupancy continues to climb. Operators includingBrightspace Senior Living are focusing on incentives that competition might not be able to offer.
“Incentives are only for a census goal or number that we want to hit,” said Brightspace CFO Brian Hendricks. “If giving incentives will create that goal … typically, it’s on a per case basis.”
Scaling back, but keeping the playbook
As occupancy rises, some operators are trimming incentives previously meant to encourage census growth. A year ago, Frontier Senior Living may have given up to $15,000 off and was up to three times as aggressive in offering them, according to President and CEO Greg Roderick.
“We’re regaining our ground very nicely. We’ve kept our rental rates to meet the needs of our expenses and staff,” Roderick said. “The last seven consecutive months have been net increases in double digits for our company. That’s after four years of nearly every month being negative.”
The operator still reserves some incentives to drive move-ins, like offering up to one month’s rent off, but that occurs only after a community’s director of finance approves it first, Roderick said.
Dallas, Texas-based Frontier has 45 communities across the U.S.
Houston, Texas-based The Aspenwood Company has also scaled back certain long-term incentives in 2025, according to President Heather Tussing. The company’s incentives are kept on the community level and the operator avoids setting rent at a discounted rate.
Tussing has the ultimate say whether an incentive goes forward, and even then they are only used to reach a target occupancy rate of 93%. Currently, Aspenwood has a companywide average of 90%.
“We have one building in Austin with over a 100 person wait list for a luxury community,” Tussing said. “We don’t even have to do SEO, we don’t have to do magazines … we don’t need to. We’re able to pour that money into the community and have a beautiful community where we’re continuously contributing to the residents and what their lifestyle looks like there.”
Tailoring incentives to each community
While American House has its new permanent incentive for teachers, Krause said it has also stepped back from offering larger incentives elsewhere. Instead, the company has invested in training for its sales teams incentives are “highly tailored” for each community.
The company also tracks occupancy based on community budgets on a weekly basis to keep its capital partners better informed on the progress being made, which has been a focus in 2025, Krause said.
“We’ve seen great growth in terms of occupancy without necessarily needing to discount outside of these programs,” she said. “It was a bit jarring coming off of Q4 into Q1, which is one of the more difficult seasons in our industry.”
Rather than relying on incentives to get through the sales in the first quarter, Krause noted sales teams instead focused more on community differentiators and leaning into the value they offered when pitching to prospects.
Brightspace’s target community occupancy is around 85%. Once it reaches that watermark, it ceases offering incentives and curtails working with third-party referral partners. After reaching that rate, a community is bringing in a positive cash flow, according to Hendricks.
Of Brightspace’s six communities, only one is below the company’s targeted occupancy rate.
“They have it in their toolbox, but it’s one of those one-offs, and if it is, it’s probably a room that’s facing the parking lot,” Hendricks said.
Looking ahead, Roderick believes the senior living industry is going to “rise up” and find what differentiates their communities from the competition.
“We’ve done those investments in staff development, buildings and their overall look and feel. With our Frontier Advantage Network, we’re bringing a lot more to the table for our prospective residents to walk into and see what’s the difference between the community down the street and a Frontier building,” he said.
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