How Love & Company’s four research fundamentals help avoid costly mistakes and redesigns
The senior living field is at a pivotal point in history. With the youngest Baby Boomers turning 75 in the coming decade, and demand for high-quality living options outpacing supply, organizations that get development right will thrive—while those that don’t risk costly redesigns and missed opportunities.
The Most Common Research-Stage Pitfalls
Let’s take a high-level look at the primary factors that traditionally cause poor market acceptance, missed presale goals and costly development plan revisions later in the process. We draw this list based on Love & Company’s 30+ years of experience working with senior living expansions and start-up communities.
REGISTER FOR THIS WEBINAR TO LEARN THE FOUR RESEARCH FUNDAMENTALS
In our September 25, 2025 webinar, Love & Company SVP of Strategic Services Sara Montalto and Director of Market Intelligence Lauren Houlik will explore these concepts in more detail and share examples of what it takes to make confident, data-driven development decisions in our webinar, “Getting New Development Right: Four Research Fundamentals That Avoid Costly Project Mistakes and Redesigns.”
- Poorly defined Primary Market Areas (PMAs): Feasibility processes that readily allow redefinition of a PMA after the initial analysis can artificially “make the numbers work”
- Unrealistic contract assumptions: Misaligned pricing or contract structures can create significant financial risks
- Overreliance on averages: Big-picture data without local nuance misses the real story
- Superficial competitive analysis: Abbreviated tours focused on obtaining pricing and occupancy data instead of deep, structured analysis of product, quality and value
- Consumer research done wrong: Too small, poorly segmented or lacking scale
How to Avoid These Costly Pitfalls
Fortunately, not-for-profit senior living organizations can sidestep these pitfalls by taking advantage of four fundamental tools essential for getting plans right the first time when planning to develop new communities.
1. Define the PMA Based on Real Moving Patterns
Developing a well-defined PMA based on realistic—rather than wishful—assumptions is the foundation of any feasibility study. This is why Love & Company uses actual market-specific moving patterns to determine where potential residents originate and to understand nuances in local migration patterns. This approach incorporates National Change of Address data, overlaid with competitive NIC MAP and demographic data. This highlights local versus regional draw and reveals psychological barriers that may prevent moves across certain boundaries.
Beyond the data, an equally critical part of defining a market area is the process itself. Love & Company’s approach to PMA development relies on collaboration, customization and data-verified transparency with clients—before running the analyses, so we don’t unintentionally manipulate the borders to make it look good on paper. No two markets are the same, and many require nuanced research to understand the moving patterns or other demographic anomalies that may impact a project’s ability to draw prospects. Overall, this helps ensure the PMA is accurate well before demand modeling begins.
The result: a realistic, data-driven understanding of the community’s true market.
2. Use Resident Demographic Analysis to Align Offering with Audience
Equally critical is understanding the demographics of those who have historically moved into a community. This is why Love & Company’s resident demographic analysis examines:
- Age and marital status
- Annual income and assets
- Previous home values and locations
- Contract and residence selections
This depth of insight helps organizations align their offerings with actual demand.
This analysis also exposes disconnects between a community’s aspirations (as is often the case) of trying to reach a more affluent resident versus the reality of who it is currently serving. Many expansion projects these days are targeting more affluent prospects than existing residents, so understanding how home values of your target expansion residents compare to your current residents, and where home values are highest, is essential to defining accurate prospect markets.
By aligning demographics with product design, expansion plans or repositioning strategies, organizations can ensure that future projects resonate with the right audience.
3. In-Market Data through Positioning Scorecards
To understand how your community truly stacks up to the competition in your prospects’ eyes, you need to go beyond numbers on a spreadsheet. You need to gather in-market data that reveals the relationship between your product and pricing —that is, your positioning. Does it represent a favorable value? Your prospects don’t use these words, but the positioning concept is how they compare their options. This is why Love & Company developed proprietary competitive positioning scorecards.
These scorecards reflect the prospects’ perspective. They will visit your competitors; so you must, too. Unlike quick “walk-through” impressions, these positioning scorecards are multi-dimensional and standardized, rating 24 attributes across categories such as:
- Site and location
- Building and grounds
- Independent living common areas
- Dining and wellness spaces
- Residences and healthcare
The key to this approach is time in the market! To really understand how consumers see you and your competitors, our evaluators spend 1.5–2 hours on tours, using a 10-point scale with specific benchmarks for what qualifies as low, average or exceptional. This gives objective comparisons across competitors.
4. Consumer Research with Depth and Scale
Traditional focus groups are exciting because you are hearing real feedback from real consumers, and yet, their findings often fall short because they engage too few participants and lack diversity. This is why Love & Company recommends consumer research events that bring together 40–50 participants per session. By holding multiple events of this size, we can gather statistically significant data by combining interactive discussions with electronic response surveys that capture individual feedback.
The larger scale allows for segmented lists—such as waitlist members, active leads, and purchased lists—so comparisons can be made across groups. Participants react to contract structures, pricing models, amenities, and early project concepts, giving organizations direct feedback before making costly design decisions.
This approach allows you to pre-test ideas, measure how perceptions shift throughout the session and walk away with actionable insights. As a bonus, it also results in sizeable interest lists looking for updates on project planning and progress!
Begin with the End in Mind
When might these research fundamentals come into play for your organization? It starts with asking the right questions.
- How is or was the PMA defined?
- Do demographic assumptions reflect reality, not averages?
- Does your competitive analysis include in-market data that meaningfully reflects actual prospect decision-making?
- Is your consumer research involving a sufficient number and variety of voices, and how are they segmented?
If the answers suggest shortcuts or surface-level analysis, it’s a warning sign that the project could be at risk.
Developing new senior living communities is inherently risky, but that risk can be managed with the proper foundation. The four fundamentals outlined above—accurate PMA definitions, resident demographic analysis, positioning-based competitive analysis and robust consumer research—equip organizations to:
- Align offerings with true market demand
- Avoid costly redesigns or failed launches
- Build confidence with boards, investors, and stakeholders
- Deliver communities that meet seniors’ real needs
The message is simple: guessing is expensive, but research pays for itself many times over. By applying these four fundamentals, your organization can navigate today’s growth opportunities with clarity and confidence.
Take The First Step … Early
If you haven’t taken the four steps described above, now is the time. Learning through slow presales that your development plans didn’t meet market expectations has a far greater financial impact than taking the time to “measure twice and cut once” at the research stage. If you have suspicions or unease about the findings from your current studies, act on them, like this Life Plan Community CEO who rethought her expansion plans using in-market data to build smarter, not bigger.
To learn more about how Love & Company can help your community avoid costly redesigns with your expansion plan, contact Wayne Langley at 925-481-8904 or schedule a short call. Let’s work together to ensure you get your development plans right the first time.
