Call Participants
Corporate Participants
Bill Grant — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Robert Probst — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Analysts
Julien Blouin — Goldman Sachs
James Kammert — Analyst
Nick Joseph — Analyst
Vikram Malhotra — Mizuho
Austin Wurschmidt — Keybanc Capital Markets
Michael Carroll — RBC Capital Markets
Wesley Golladay — Bayard
Juan Sanabria — DMO Capital
Farrell Granath — Bank Of America
Rich Anderson — Cantor Fitzgerald
Michael Goldsmith — UBS Financial
Michael Stroyeck — Green Street
Mike Mueller — Analyst
Elmer Chang — Analyst
Ronald Kamdem — Morgan Stanley
Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
Ventas, Inc (NYSE: VTR) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Apr. 28, 2026
Presentation
Operator
Thank you for standing by. My name is Bailey and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Ventas first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press STAR followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question again, press star and 1.
I will now like to turn the call over to BJ Grant, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Bill Grant — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, Bailey. Good morning everyone and welcome to the Ventas first quarter 2026 results conference call. Yesterday we issued our first quarter 2026 earnings release presentation materials and supplemental information package which are available on the ventas website@ir.ventasreit.com As a reminder, remarks today may include forward looking statements and other matters. Forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and a variety of topics may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in such statements.
For a more detailed discussion of those factors, please refer to our earnings release for this quarter and to our most recent SEC filings, all of which are available on the Ventas website. Certain non GAAP financial measures will also be discussed on this call. And for a reconciliation of these measures to the most closely comparable GAAP measures, please refer to our supplemental information package posted on the Investor Relations website. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Deborah A. Cafaro, Chairman and CEO of Ventas.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you BJ and good morning to all of our shareholders and other participants. I want to welcome you to the Ventas first quarter 2026 earnings call. Ventas continues to drive growth and outperformance as a leading participant in the longevity economy. We’re already into our fifth consecutive year of double digit annual growth in our senior housing operating portfolio or shop. Even more exciting, this year represents a new and positive inflection point when demographic demand jumps and growth remains elevated for over a decade.
Our business and team have been built to meet this moment and seize the unprecedented opportunity for multi year growth and value creation. With shop as our engine, Ventas is now a $56 billion S&P 500 company with a portfolio of over 1400 properties. Serving a large and growing aging population. We have developed a unique brand that stands for Delivering for Stakeholders and Winning Together. Our excellent first quarter results and improved full year outlook demonstrate our competitive advantages.
The impact of our differentiated platform, strong execution of our 1, 2, 3 strategy and our momentum in the quarter, Ventas delivered 9% year over year growth in total same store property, NOI and normalized FFO per share. SHOP NOI grew over 15% and US occupancy increased 370 basis points. Fueled by broad based demand and our VENTAS OI initiatives. Accretion from senior housing investment activity further contributed to our growth in the quarter. Showing our strategy in action and notably our liquidity reached record levels and our financial position continued to strengthen.
Based on our first quarter results and our confidence, we have improved our outlook for the full year, increasing our midpoint guidance for ffo per share by $0.03 to $3.86 per share led by shop, same store growth of 16%. As a result of our strategy and execution, we have already grown senior housing to over 60% of our business and our communities now serve nearly 100,000 residents in a large and highly fragmented sector where Most operators run 10 or fewer communities. Our platform gives us unique advantages and to drive out performance at scale through data and experiential insights.
With our collaborative approach, VENTAS OI also attracts many experienced operators who want to manage our communities and benefit from Ventas aligned approach people and platform and we’re just getting started in the investment market for shop, we have an outstanding private to public arbitrage opportunity. We have already closed $1.7 billion of attractive senior housing investments this year and over $6 billion since the beginning of 2024. Our number one capital allocation priority remains us shop communities that meet our strategic framework and can deliver unlevered IRRs in the double digit to mid teens range at pricing below replacement costs.
Interestingly, because there is significant existing and new investor interest in senior housing for all the obvious reasons, we are seeing more owners and potential sellers bringing assets to market and engaging in conversations with us about transacting this trend is expanding our pipeline significantly. We are confident in our ability to capture more than our fair share of desirable deals. Because of our momentum in the market and our competitive moat, we have now increased our 2026 investment volume guidance to $3 billion.
We are focused on increasing our shop business organically and externally to drive our forward enterprise growth rate and serve the nearly 70 million baby boomers who start turning 80 in 2026. In the next five years alone this group will grow nearly 30%. Yet in the first quarter senior housing construction starts totaled only about 1,500 new units and total senior housing communities under construction remained at at historic lows with at least a three year start to finish development cycle. These favorable demand supply trends provide our advantage platform with compelling and durable tailwinds.
The Ventas team is unified and enthusiastic about outperforming at scale and the multi year growth and value creation opportunity ahead. We are excited about our improved outlook for 2026 and the setup for the coming years as we pursue our mission to help people live longer, healthier and happier lives. With our unique brand standing, for commitment to each other and our stakeholders, we are in it to win it together. In closing, I want to recognize our admired colleague Pete Bulgarilli. Pete is retiring after an extraordinary four decade career in commercial real estate and eight years leading our OMAR business with excellence and integrity.
On behalf of all of us at Ventas, I thank Pete and wish him every continued success and happiness. With that, I’m pleased to turn the call over to Justin.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Thank you Debbie I’m pleased to join you today to discuss another strong quarter of execution in senior housing reflecting continued momentum across both organic performance and external growth in our SHOP portfolio. I’ll start with SHOP performance, then provide updates on our active asset management and the full year outlook and conclude with investments and capital deployment starting with shop. The first quarter results reflect both strong market fundamentals and sharp execution across the portfolio.
In the first quarter, Shop Same Store NOI increased over 50 15% year over year, kicking off our fifth consecutive year of double digit NOI growth. This is driven by a powerful combination of occupancy growth, pricing strength and operating leverage and increasingly supported by the Ventas OI initiatives we are deploying with our operators. Occupancy continues to be the primary driver of performance. Same store average occupancy increase 310 basis points year over year reaching 90.4%. Performance this quarter was particularly broad based with so many operators contributing to our success there are too many to name.
The Results in the US portfolio were especially strong where same store occupancy increased 370 basis points year over year and outperformed The NIC top 99 markets by 150 basis points on pricing. Rev4 increased 5% year over year reflecting strong in house rate increases that are running at nearly 8% as well as continued improvement in street rates across geographies, operators and product types. Operating expenses increased 5.8% year over year which was largely driven by higher occupancy levels and winter storm related costs.
Net net NOI grew over 15% year over year and we delivered meaningful operating leverage with NOI margins expanding 170 basis points year over year to 30% and incremental margins at 50%. As we continue to deploy our active asset management, we’re executing in close partnership with our best in class operators and with a talented and recently expanded Ventas shop team that is driving performance at the unit community and portfolio level. Across the portfolio, we’re focused on community level execution alongside our operating partners.
Supported by the continued evolution of Ventas oi, we are deploying targeted initiatives including Refresh capex price volume optimization guidance and a sharp focus on sales culture with the ultimate goal of achieving zero lost revenue days in our highly occupied communities. We’re also implementing unit level sales strategies supported by boots on the ground site visits from our team and we’re doing it in collaboration with operators, delivering strong revenue and NOI growth while ensuring the senior living value proposition is realized for residents and families through the care, services and peace of mind provided in our communities.
This combination of active asset management and structural demand tailwinds has led us to increase our 2026 shop outlook including same store NOI growth of 16% at the midpoint which is up from 15%. This is driven by a higher expectation of occupancy growth of approximately 300 basis points which is leading to increased revenue growth expectations of approximately 8, 3, 4%. As we’ve discussed previously, the key selling season runs from May through September. While we enter the season in a favorable position because of the first quarter strength, our success during the key selling season will determine the full year outcome.
Looking ahead, there’s real momentum building for us to expand on several key fronts. Over recent years, we’ve made intentional strategic moves to ensure Ventas stands ready to harness the growing surge in in senior housing demand. Because of those efforts, we’re confident that we’ll continue to drive solid organic growth fueled by ongoing increases in occupancy and the operating leverage we’re achieving across the SHOP portfolio. And with our US communities averaging about 87% occupancy, there’s still significant Runway for us to continue to drive outperformance.
Importantly, the strength we’re seeing in the shop performance gives us confidence to continue leaning into external growth. Turning to investments, 2026 is off to an excellent start as we execute our external growth strategy with focus and intention. Year to date, we have completed 1.7 billion of high quality senior housing acquisitions in the US building on the fast start we saw in January. Based on this activity and our outlook for the remainder of the year, we are increasing our senior housing focused investment guidance from 2 and a half to 3 billion for 2026.
While there is heightened interest in senior housing investments as additional capital flows into the sector, Ventas remains competitively advantaged. Notably, of the 1.7 billion of investments closed year to date, more than 90% were relationship driven, over 60% were sourced off market and more than 40% were completed with repeat sellers. Since the fourth quarter of 2024, we have now completed over 5.7 billion of senior housing acquisitions, adding more than 17,000 units to the SHOP portfolio. These investments have been carefully selected to closely align with our right market, right asset, right right operator framework and they are performing in line with our underwritten expectations.
We are buying communities that enhance portfolio quality, are located in attractive markets with strong demand growth, are insulated from future supply risk and deliver low to mid teens unlevered IRRs. Our investment strategy and team are focused on senior housing investment opportunities with different combinations of growth and yield that can produce attractive risk adjusted returns. For example, earlier this month we completed a $540 million acquisition of the Revel portfolio which represents a value add lease up opportunity at scale.
This investment consists of newly built luxury independent living communities located in affluent high growth markets across the Western US with average in place occupancy in the mid 70% range. The combination of the newer assets, high barrier markets and significant embedded occupancy upside creates a highly attractive growth profile. This portfolio was acquired at a significant discount to replacement cost. Even with its quality, scale and amenity set. The seller elected to retain a 25% interest in the portfolio to share in the strategic and financial benefits of implementing Ventas OI initiatives across the portfolio to drive unlevered IRRs in the mid teens.
Transactions like this underscore the advantages of scale relationships, operating expertise and decisiveness in today’s market. Excluding the Revel transaction, our remaining senior housing investments completed so far in 2026 are expected to generate a 6.9% year one NOI yield in low to mid teens unlevered IRRs. These investments also allow us to expand our operator relationships. Our Ventas OI platform provides the capabilities to manage multiple operators at scale enabling us to retain strong in place operators and support their growth.
Looking ahead, we plan to continue to pursue attractive senior housing investments that combine durable in place cash flow, embedded growth and attractive risk adjusted returns. In closing, we are encouraged by the performance of the SHOP business in the first quarter and excited about the opportunities ahead. We are executing from a position of strength with strong organic growth, compelling external investment opportunities and a long Runway for value creation. With that, I’LL turn it over to Bob.
Robert Probst — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Justin and good morning everyone. I’ll cover three areas this morning. First, our financial results for Q1. Second, our balance sheet and capital activity and finally our updated outlook for 2026. Starting with our overall enterprise performance, we delivered a strong start to the year led by over 15% same store cash NOI growth in our SHOP portfolio normalized ffo for the first quarter was $0.94 per share up 9% year over year driven by total company same store property level growth of nearly 9% and accretive senior housing investments.
Our outpatient medical and research portfolio or Omar delivered 2.4% same store cash NOI growth led by outpatient medical growing 3.1% year over year. Occupancy in outpatient medical reached almost 91% in the first quarter, a 50 basis point increase year over year marks the seventh consecutive quarter of occupancy growth. Our triple net segment grew same store cash NOI by 1.6% in the quarter, benefiting from the 35% Brookdale cash rent escalator which went into effect January 1st of 2026. This triple net result is in line with our expectations in supportive of our confirmed full year guidance for the segment.
Turning next to our balance sheet, Our balance sheet continues to strengthen as a result of organic shop growth and equity funded senior housing investments. Net debt to EBITDA improved to five times at quarter end, a 20 basis point sequential improvement with further improvement expected through the balance of the year. Liquidity is strong with 5.5 billion available at the end of the first quarter providing Ventas with significant financial flexibility. Our investment momentum has continued into 2026 to fund this growth.
We raised approximately $2.4 billion of equity designated for 2026 investment activity, including $800 million settled during the first quarter and $1.6 billion currently available through forward equity sales agreements. Given our encouraging start to the year, we’re improving our outlook for 2026. We now expect normalized FFO per share to range from $3.82 to $3.89 or $3.86 at the midpoint, a 3 cent increase from our prior outlook. Bridging from our prior guidance midpoint. The 3 cent increase is driven by stronger organic property performance led by SHOP and accretive senior housing investment activity which together contributed 4 cent per share increase.
These favorable items are partially offset by one penny from the higher forward interest rate curve. We’re also increasing our total company same store cash NOI growth outlook to nearly 10% at the midpoint resulting from 100 basis point higher shot midpoint of 16%. More fulsome discussion of our guidance assumptions can be found in our Q1 supplemental presentation posted to our website to close. We are very pleased with our start to 2026. The first quarter reinforces the strength of our organic performance, the durability of senior housing demand and the embedded growth profile of our portfolio.
With that I’ll turn the call back to the operator.
Question & Answers
Operator
Thank you so much. At this time I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Julian Blue with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Julien Blouin — Analyst, Goldman Sachs
Yes, thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to touch Maybe on the $540 million rebel investment, I guess in your view what had sort of driven the underperformance of that portfolio, keeping it in the mid 70% range. And then as we think of how Ventas Oi sort of plugs in there, what are sort of the lowest hanging fruit that Ventel so I can sort of allow you to improve and what are some of the longer term gains that the platform gives you?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
It’s Justin, great question. So I’ll step back a little bit, answer your question, give you a little history and then some of the attributes of the, of the acquisition and the opportunity ahead. So this is a portfolio that was built by Wolf Co. Which is a large multifamily developer with a very long history. They’re based in Scottsdale. They entered this senior housing sector with this really exciting development because this is a, it’s a resort like independent living product that would appeal to a very active senior, highly amenitized luxury setting.
And at the beginning when they entered the space they used third party management and when they got into it they realized that they were probably better off setting up their own platform. So they set up Revel and that was a slow start. Now they have a team that is very talented, really across the board. One of the, you know it’s probably obvious that one of the reasons they wanted to work with Ventas is the Venta SOI platform and the ability also to stay in through the storing ventures so they could participate in some of the upside.
And what we like about it is the quality of the assets are really high. We’re buying at below replacement costs. We see operational upside, that’s significant. And it’s us entering and the Revel team and our team’s already been on the ground and you know they’re you Know, we’re seeing pretty immediate, you know, sales upside. We’re catching the portfolio at a time where it has pretty good momentum already. We’re facing a forward market that has 1200 basis points of net demand over the next few years.
So we’re playing into tailwinds as well. And so when you, you put the whole package together, it’s a really exciting high growth investment opportunity, really high quality assets sourced completely off market and it should generate really good returns for us moving forward.
Julien Blouin — Analyst, Goldman Sachs
Thank you. And then I guess just more generally on the current transaction environment, I mean, how would you describe the current level of competition and capital chasing transactions? Are you seeing a lot more bidders showing up when you are participating in sort of more widely brokered opportunities? And are you starting to see that reflected in some of the cap rates? And have you changed sort of your expectations at all on the cap rate front for the rest of the year?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
I’m going to step back again. It’s another great question, but just important to frame it so, you know, we just updated our investment guidance from 2.5 to 3 billion. We’re doing this in a period where there is more interest in the sector. There’s clearly new investors, there’s a wide variety of PE that’s entered the space, both large and small owner operators, other REITs, there’s institutional capital. And with that in mind, we’ve updated our investment guidance to the highest we’ve had in three years with high confidence.
And the reason we can do that is because of all the advantages that Ventas has. We have our competitive moat, which includes the Ventas OI platform, the ability to manage operators at scale in a highly fragmented sector. We’re up to 44 operators now. When we enter deals, we have no financing contingency. You know, the liquidity obviously is very high. Our track record of executing on deals has been excellent. And I mentioned in the prepared remarks that 90% are relationship oriented, 60% off market, 40% repeat sellers.
We have a growing pipeline. The broader market is bringing more to the market as well. And we just have a track record of delivering on what we say we’re going to do. I mentioned on the previous call that we had there’s a drift down in, in cap rates from the sevens and into the sixes. We printed in our supplemental around six and a half all in. And that includes the Revel deal. It’s six, nine without. When you look at the rest of the pipeline throughout the year, we’re expecting high sixes moving forward and that includes a mix of value add and high performing communities with upside moving forward.
One thing that’s interesting is that even though the cap rates have drifted down a bit, our IRRs have remained solid and that’s because of Revel and some other value add opportunities we have that’s delivering growth for us.
Julien Blouin — Analyst, Goldman Sachs
Thank you very much.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Jim Kamert with Evercore. Your line is open.
James Kammert
Good morning. Thank you. Justin, I think you mentioned expor was 5.8% this quarter, if I’m not mistaken. But just generically, how much of that would you say is say recurring food and labor maybe versus temporal, say sales commissions or weather?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, it actually wasn’t poor. It was total expenses 5.8%. And you know, there’s, it was a lot of, it was weather related. We had a little bit of volume impact and then the full year guys, five and a half. And that includes the weather related expense in the first quarter, but also some volume impacts throughout the rest of the year.
Robert Probst — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, the principal drive in the OPEX guide from five to five and a half percent is volume, Jim. It’s more
James Kammert
That’s helpful. And do you think, I mean, who knows, right? With labor costs, et cetera, how does Ventas educate its senior housing residents regarding that sort of expense dynamic vis a vision, probable price increases? Do they think, do you think residents understand that?
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Jim, good morning, it’s Debbie. So one important point to start the conversation is that the labor market has been, you know, pretty constructive. And so that’s an important point given, you know, that we do hire caregivers to take care of the residents.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah. And I think that the other point on that is really the value proposition that the residents are realizing and there’s a wide variety. I mean they’re engaging with us because they’re looking for safety, socialization, peace of mind, ease of living, the amenities and you know, the care delivery that they can receive in the assisted living and memory care settings. And you know, if you’re delivering services and care the right way and engaging with your residents or families in a way that builds and maintains that trust, the value proposition is well understood and the price discussion is understood as well.
And so there is certainly an active dialogue, particularly between our operators and the residents around, you know, the cost of service and care delivery and then the prices that we charge in in association with that.
James Kammert
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Seth Burge with Citi. Your line is open.
Nick Joseph
Thanks. It’s Nick Joseph here with Seth. Just in terms of your comments, on increased competition or more interest in the sector. And you know, in your prepared remarks you mentioned that supply and construction starts are still very low. So I guess the question is, you know, at what point are you starting to see any of that capital as returns compress or at least cap rates compress a bit and you see more and more interest move into development. You know, particularly giving your comments on acquisitions versus replacement costs.
I know there’s still a gap there, but are we getting closer to some of that capital becoming interested in starting new supply?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
So it’s another really good question. We’re still 20 to 40% off in terms of where rents need to be for, you know, most developments to pencil. We’ve talked about this before, you know, when, when developments start to be delivered at some point, when you see starts announced, it’s most likely going to be a very high price point product that’s so disconnected from the existing market that the, the underwriting, you know, supports disposably, you know, high end market is available. And you know, but if we just look at, across our markets, we see 20 to 40% higher rents needed to support new supply.
Doesn’t mean there’s not interest in it, you know, from potential capital players and operators and developers out there. Given the fundamentals are so strong and the demand outlook is so incredibly strong, it makes sense and we’ll need, we’ll need it at some point, but it still doesn’t seem near term.
Nick Joseph
Thank you. And then just maybe in terms of the asset sales, obviously just given the strength of the transaction market and the interest there, what’s the opportunity from the Ventas portfolio side to recycle any of your senior housing assets that maybe can harvest the value and redeploy into other opportunities?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, so we’ve been, you know, each year we have a small amount of targeted, you know, dispos, usually a few hundred million or so what we targeted and there’s always some, and some of it’s still senior housing. One of the key parts of our strategy is to make sure that we’re in the right markets with the right assets. And if we see anything that we don’t think supports the growth profile that we’re targeting, then we’ll introduce it to the market as a sale. We’ve been doing that consistently over the past several years and continue to always look for that bottom part of the portfolio that we can sell.
Nick Joseph
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Malhotra with Mizuho. Your line is open.
Vikram Malhotra — Analyst, Mizuho
Morning. Thanks for being the Question. So I guess two for me. One, just going back to the Revel deal, can you maybe give us a little bit of flavor as to, maybe a bit more flavor as to why the occupancy kind of hasn’t picked up and kind of, you know, the positioning of the portfolio in terms of, you know, the product mix. Are there more studios for example, when people want larger studios, is it a price point issue or a labor issue in terms of the right people? What could you know, get you trending higher in terms of occupancy over the next year or two?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, so good question. So it’s, there’s no structural issue. It’s not a situation where you have studios and a one bedroom market for instance. This is an investment that was well built for the type of resident they’re trying to serve. One thing that’s interesting when you visit is you don’t see many residents hanging around in their apartments. These are very active communities that have a significant focus on health and wellness, fitness education around around those topics. You know, there’s a social event with music playing, there’s an activity at the bar, we’re there in the afternoon and it’s just a great time.
And so I think they’ve done a great job of introducing a product that, that will work and be real popular. And in many of the locations it’s already proven to deliver a stabilized occupancy. But a lot of the newer product is still in lease up. And so we’ll be targeting those communities and work with the team that’s in place that has generated some momentum already to try to help improve on really sales delivery, sales execution. Also there’s some price sophistication opportunities as well that we can bring through the Venta platform.
Vikram Malhotra — Analyst, Mizuho
Okay, and then just one more I guess, you know, I’m wondering, is it time for Ventas to maybe use the fund it already has or create a new fund in this, in the sense monetize certain, maybe core higher occupancy senior housing or maybe even some life sciences where you know, you could perhaps get fees, promotes, etc. Just given where we are in the cycle and the deviation in say life size versus senior housing, I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for Ventas in the fund business.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Vikram, this is Debbie. Thanks for the question. We do have a Ventas investment management business that includes an open end fund and some other vehicles. And certainly with all the interest in senior housing and with Ventas competitive advantages and brand, we’re well positioned to continue to try to expand our footprint in senior housing in a variety of ways, which could include things like additional vehicles.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Austin Wertschmitt with Keybanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Austin Wurschmidt — Analyst, Keybanc Capital Markets
Hey, good morning, Justin. The incremental margin within shop segment has remained around the 50% level, which I think you previously assumed an initial guidance. Has anything changed relative to what’s assumed in the revised guidance? And I guess, you know, given occupancy within the same store pool is now above 90%. When, when do you think you could start to see that that incremental margin improve, you know, into the 60, 70% range or better?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yep. Another one of our favorites. So, you know, we, the margin’s been around the incremental margins around 50%. It’s been that way for years in a row now. And that that’s as we were on that journey from the kind of mid-80s to 90% occupancy. And we’re, you know, the guidance really assumes that it’s in the 50s this year as we’re, you know, we’re at this 90% occupancy mark. Now, we know that in our portfolio that communities that are, you know, in that kind of 90% plus range of occupancy that have not had an occupancy change year over year, so they’ve had a flat occupancy, they deliver a 70% incremental margin.
And you know, obviously we have a group of communities that we’re still in lease up, you know, across our US portfolio, which is only 87% occupied. So we still have a lot of communities that are delivering occupancy growth. But when you isolate those and that didn’t deliver occupancy growth year over year, that rule of thumb we’ve talked about is certainly achievable. And our goal over time is going to be to to get as many communities in that category as possible.
Austin Wurschmidt — Analyst, Keybanc Capital Markets
That’s helpful. And then you reiterated kind of that the May to September key selling season is really gonna determine how the year plays out. But you did go ahead and increase occupancy given, I guess, the lack of seasonality. You saw in 1Q how much of that occupancy guidance increase was specific to 1Q versus flowing through, I guess, a better outcome through the balance of the year.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah. So that, you know, this key selling season hasn’t even started yet. And we do have, you know, optimism heading into it, you know, because of the strong start we had. But I would really think about it as the strong start really delivering the increase from 270 to 300 on the full year and knowing that we have a lot of execution left during the most important part of the year, which is the key selling season.
Austin Wurschmidt — Analyst, Keybanc Capital Markets
Thank you, very helpful.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Carroll with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Michael Carroll — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Yep. Thanks. With seniors housing occupancy now above 90% I mean does it make more sense for operators to push for higher rates as opposed when occupancy was in the low 80% range? I guess. Or said another way, does the improved occupancy level allow these operators to be a little bit more aggressive for their operating strategy trying to push for higher rates?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Well, I would just want to remind you that we’re 87% occupied in the U.S. So we see our opportunity very much as volume driven. We’re happy that we’re seeing good performance from both occupancy and from rate and that’s delivering the eight and three quarter percent revenue guide that we made on the full year. So everything’s contributing to the revenue growth and the improved outlook on revenue. However, volume remains the number one focus. We do know when you have higher occupied communities that there’s better opportunity for price performance and we see that in our portfolio.
But the opportunity really is to continue to drive occupancy in the U.S.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Right. And that’s what sets up the multi year growth and value creation opportunity from organic growth in shop is the rate and occupancy working together to deliver outperformance.
Michael Carroll — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Okay, great. I appreciate that. And then just circling back on potential developments. I mean have there been interesting development opportunities across crossed Ventas desk that they’re willing to pursue or is it still just mainly focused on acquisitions at this point?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
We are certainly focused on acquisitions. This has been, we’re in our third year of a very successful run of acquiring communities that have attractive they’re accretive year one and have a growth profile that’s supporting low to mid teen unlevered IRRs. And we and that pipeline has grown and we’re executing on it. So that’s our first priority along with of course continuing to drive organic performance across the shop portfolio and looking for opportunities to improve performance in those communities that we already own.
Development opportunities. I’m sure there’ll be some in the future, but that’s not our focus at the time.
Michael Carroll — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Okay, great. Thanks.
Operator
Thanks Meg. Your next question comes from the line of Wes Golliday with Bayard. Your line is open.
Wesley Golladay — Analyst, Bayard
Hey, good morning everyone. I just Want to go back to the Revel portfolio. Just looking on the website of place for mom looks really highly rated. And so I just want to go back into, you know, what the game plan will be. Is it, you know, is it really leaning into this Ventas OI given that the new, I guess the operator more data advice on pricing. Just trying to see, you know, how near term what the near term opportunity is. Will their portfolio be ready for the key leasing season?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, well, I’ll start with the last part. Is absolutely ready for the key selling season. You know these are just really well constructed resort like communities that will, will be very competitive. And as we met with Wolf in the early stages, it became very clear quickly that the combination of these great communities, high demand markets, their newly reinvigorated talented management team and the Ventas OI platform, which concludes the benefit of all of our data analytics but also our boots on the ground approach which has already started, that we can really create value in this together.
That’s why the joint venture was a great fit and we’ll look forward to doing that. Obviously the biggest opportunity is to continue to drive sales and also when you’re working on sales, price and volume always work together. So we’ll bring our expertise in both areas to the platform.
Wesley Golladay — Analyst, Bayard
And then when you look at the pipeline, you know, is this a unique opportunity you have? You when you look at the future pipeline, you’ve seen these where you have the stuff that core a little higher yield with also have, you know, just plug it into the OI and then you get a nice in a few years.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, I think what you’re. You broke up a little bit. But I think what you’re asking is is this a unique opportunity and are there other value add opportunities in the portfolio? We’ve had a number like this already. They’ve just been smaller. And so this is the first one at scale that we’re pretty excited about. We have other value opportunities in the three billion dollar gap. So we’re. Yeah, we’re looking forward to delivering accretive investments with growth. Okay,
Wesley Golladay — Analyst, Bayard
I did break up. Yeah, sorry about breaking up, but you did get the question. Thank you.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Good, Great, thanks.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Juana Santabrio with DMO Capital. Your line is open.
Juan Sanabria — Analyst, DMO Capital
Good morning. Just a question on seniors. You know there’s been press articles about given the tight markets about operators being able to charge entrance fees and maybe generate some revenue off of wait lists. So just curious on your approach and how that may or may not contribute to kind of the 100% occupancy goal or zero days downtime.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, it starts with the value proposition. I think it’s really interesting that this is as you know, a private pay, consumer driven business that people are choosing where they want to live for the security it offers them and their families. So that is a very encouraging especially when coupled with the demographic demand that we see accelerating and then remaining elevated for a long period of time. So that’s really important to think about. And I’ll turn it over to Justin really to talk about the different management of communities as they go up the curve in terms of occupancy which we see happening and over time will happen more in our portfolio.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, and Juan, you mentioned entrance fees. I’m going to reframe it and call it community fees, which is a fee that’s been really a fee that’s been part of the industry pricing package for many years. In more competitive periods it would be reduced or waived. In this period where we have increased demand, it’s actually going up. So we are seeing higher community fees across our portfolio. So that’s consistent with what you’re reading about. And we’re also starting to see wait lists form now. We’ve had them for many years already in Canada.
That’s where our longest wait list exists in Quebec. And we’re starting to have some wait lists in the US and there’s certainly deposits that are required for waitlists and in some cases you can charge to be on a waitlist and we’re at the front end of that. But there’s demand and as Debbie mentioned, the value proposition is very appealing to those that are interested. So it has supported better pricing
Juan Sanabria — Analyst, DMO Capital
And just going back to development or supply. That’s come up a couple times. Curious on the appetite to structure something either with maybe a preferred or MES type component to where you guys could earn a return during the build out or lease up. Historically you guys haven’t done us development in seniors housing. So just curious if that is something that would be of interest. I mean a couple of the leading operators including Sunrise have talked about looking at development. So it seems like it’s becoming near term.
So just curious on your appetite. Maybe not traditional, simple, but in other structures to where you could earn a return during that initial phase.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Well, you know, so there certainly are structures that can, you know, that we can utilize that make sense and you know, when it comes to development and we can, you know, with the right opportunity can underwrite returns and we have a lot of partners that would be qualified to do that with. It’s just not a big area of focus for us. We’re focused on acquisitions, you know, as described. You know, they’re delivering, you know, the accretive growth opportunities, but Also the unlevered IRRs that are in the limited to mid teens.
And so I know that’s not quite what you’re asking. The answer is yes, there’s a way to do it, but it’s also important to know that that’s really not where we’re focused at in scale at this point.
Juan Sanabria — Analyst, DMO Capital
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Pharrell Grenaf with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Farrell Granath — Analyst, Bank Of America
Hi, good morning. This is Farrell Graniff. I first just wanted to ask about the increase in the cash G and A. I know you had mentioned about adding some staff as well on the shop platform. I was curious if there’s any other contributing factors or if there are any initiatives that are also going into that figure.
Robert Probst — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I’ll take that one for cash G and A. We mentioned in February and you see it in the numbers in the first quarter we are investing behind the business. We’re obviously growing and scaling the platform and so investing behind that people process technology in order to be able to accelerate that growth is definitely part of the playbook. We continue to believe that growth on cash DNA will be in line with the growth of the enterprise. We continue to stay focused on efficiency and effectiveness.
But, you know, the first quarter is representative, I think, of the plan.
Farrell Granath — Analyst, Bank Of America
Great. And also on the rollout of Ventest oi, is that fully integrated with all your operators currently on your shop platform or is there an additional rollout that we could expect?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, it’s fully integrated. If you’re new to us, there’s a period of time that has to pass before you’re fully integrated. We have a number of newer operators that have joined us in the recent months. But yeah, this is a fully integrated platform across all of our operators, across all of our geographies, primarily in the US and you know, combining the advantage of the data analytics platform and the experiential insights that we deliver through a number of avenues, including boots on the ground, site visits with our operators.
Farrell Granath — Analyst, Bank Of America
Great, thank you so much.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Rich Anderson with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open.
Rich Anderson — Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald
Thanks. Good morning. Great Quarter question number one is early on, Debbie, you said you know, you’re seeing increased engagement to do deals with Ventas and I guess I’m curious why anyone would be a motivated seller with Everything just sort of starting to happen here. You know, it’s not like they’re getting five caps on deals to get, you know, paid for the opportunity set going forward. So you know, what is the. I get the Revel deal, but like what is in it for people to be a seller today? And along those lines, do you think there’ll be more in the way of JV type of deals that you’ll have to accommodate to continue to grow, maybe OP unit deals?
I’m just curious how that dynamic might be playing into the future for external growth standpoint. I
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Mean. Good question. It is true that more and more people are bringing assets to market which is building our pipeline considerably and giving us a great opportunity set. And you know, sellers come in different varieties, you know, private equity sellers, other holders who have limited life vehicles or other holding periods that have been perhaps exceeded because of, you know, the last couple years and who also, you know, want to make sure that they can, you know, achieve returns and then perhaps, you know, recycle capital.
We see a lot of that. We see some debt maturities and you know, the truth is when the assets get in our hands, they’re likely to perform better. And so, you know, we may be having better returns than the seller could have in, you know, if they hold on to the asset. So it tends to be longer hold periods. Different types of sellers who maybe don’t have the advantage platform that we have. This is a very difficult business to run in a, you know, just a one off basis or in small scale. And that’s why we’re building this platform to be able to outperform at scale.
So those are some of the reasons. I don’t know if Justin, you want to add any or.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah,
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
There’s
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
A second part of the question regarding joint ventures and what I would say is, you know, the Revel deal is obviously a joint venture. The strength on strength joint venture opportunity go create value. In any investment we make, we’re always looking for alignment and we found it that way, you know, in that case through a joint venture and most of our senior housing investments, we’re doing it through align management agreements. And so that’s helping us to, to be on the same page with the operators from day one when we start a new relationship.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
The rest of our expected Investment activity is 100% equity ownership by Ventas.
Rich Anderson — Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald
Okay, next question is a lot of your, a lot of REITs and others, again to reiterate a recurring theme, are sort of going after this opportunity which you have to do right this is a great dynamic supply, demand dynamic going forward for the next several years. But, you know, everyone is sort of standing on the same side of the boat. And when that happens, you know, eventually, you know, the boat tips. And I’m wondering if, you know, do you see an opportunity of people that are buyers today that may be necessary sellers a couple of years from now, when you think about development coming back into the Fray, you know, 20% below rents needed to justify development.
Well, if you start today, three years from now, it might have made a whole, whole lot of sense to start a development today. So I just wonder if you think that there’s a second chapter of people that are buyers today that will be sellers tomorrow. For Ventas. Thanks.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. And the reason is more about the expertise and data that are necessary to really do well in this business. I do think some new entrants will find it more challenging, frankly, and they will likely be sellers because you really have to know what you’re doing, as Justin does from his decades in the industry. And we’ve spent five years building this platform and it’s very effective and differentiated. And if you don’t have that, it’s much harder to succeed. So I do think that will give us more opportunities as we look in the next couple of years.
Rich Anderson — Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Rich.
Operator
Your next question is from Michael Goldsmith with UBS Financial. Your line is open.
Michael Goldsmith — Analyst, UBS Financial
Hey, it’s Michael Goldsmith. I’m here with Justin Hazwig. Thanks a lot for taking our questions. Maybe sticking with the Revel investment. It sounded like you’ve done some smaller lease up or unstabilized acquisitions in the past. This one’s clearly a bit bigger. So maybe the follow up question to that is just are you more willing now to be a buyer of these type of properties? And if so, is that driven by the improved backdrop or something else in the environment that makes this more attractive now?
Thanks.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, Amy, we are, we’ve been really from the beginning of this investment run we’ve been on, which started in 24, we’ve been focused on unlevered IRRs in the low to mid teens. You know, we have been delivering on that through a variety of different types of investments in senior housing. And certainly, you know, a value add opportunity is great because it’ll support, you know, more growth. And in this particular one hits the mid teens on leverage IRRs. And so, you know, we like that opportunity.
There’s others, smaller opportunities like that that we’ve had, we’ve had others that that are in the pipeline in the 3 billion that we’ve mentioned that that will deliver some, you know, more, more close to the mid teens as well. And you’re really pulling two levers to get there. Right. You have the going in year one yield and then the expected growth profile of the asset over time. And those are working together in everything we’ve been investing in to deliver the IRRs that we’re targeting.
Michael Goldsmith — Analyst, UBS Financial
Got it. And as a follow up, maybe can you provide an update on the Brookdale transitions, how those 45 assets are trending? Are you largely in line with your expectation of realizing $50 million of upside on those? And if so, what’s the timeline? There’s.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yep. So remind Everybody. We have 45 communities that we transitioned late last year, earlier this year from our Brookdale lease to our shop portfolio. These are large scale communities that are located in markets with high demand. So tailwinds that we’re playing into, they require additional investment to be competitive. We’ve completed, will have completed by next month a majority of those investments in the portfolio. So the CapEx deployment really on track. All five operators are fully integrated now into the communities and they’re getting handle on the operation and really focused on the key selling season.
So that’s going as planned. And then like I said before, we really viewed 26 as the year to put all the pieces in place. And then 27 is and beyond is really the NOI growth opportunity. And you’re right, we did see a double the NOI opportunity because it was around a $50 million run rate back at the, you know, the end of 24 when we put this deal together. And we’re anticipating over the next few years to be able to double that. And we’ve put all the pieces in place now to get started on that process.
Michael Goldsmith — Analyst, UBS Financial
Thank you very much. Good luck in the second quarter.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Stroyock with Green Street. Your line is open.
Michael Stroyeck — Analyst, Green Street
Thanks. And good morning. With the, with the bidding tents getting more competitive, particularly within high quality, well stabilized product, have you seen meaningful declines in your win rates within that subsect of the market?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
You know, interestingly enough, our win rate has been pretty consistent and you know that the pipeline has become bigger. The actual pipeline is a little bigger and then our win rate is consistent. Therefore that’s why we’ve raised our investment guidance. And so, you know, there’s exceptional deals here and there that go for, you know, some pretty aggressive cap rates. But like I said, we’ve been Able to exploit all the strengths that we have and a great track record and continue to have confidence in our ability to execute within the market.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
And our win rates stayed high, too, because a lot of the deals are really off market and bilateral in nature, and so that helps give us an advantage.
Michael Stroyeck — Analyst, Green Street
Got it. Makes sense. Maybe a separate question. You’ve highlighted the growth in operator count over the years. Just philosophically, how does the company think about operator count? What are the gives and takes of greater operator diversification? And do you expect your operator count to grow or contract from here?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
So Debbie mentioned in her prepared remarks that the fragmented nature of the sector, most of the industries operate by operators. They have 10 or fewer assets. And so these are small operators and then the large ones are usually around 100 or less, and so not particularly big. There’s a few on the bigger side. So if you’re going to invest in the space and you’re going to do it at scale, you really need a platform that can accommodate multiple operators. And so we’re very focused on doing that. Right.
And it starts with the operating selection criteria to ensure that, you know, that the operator has a strong local market focus and reputation, they have expertise in the particular product type that they’re operating, the talent is experienced and, you know, the management team is a team that we can rely on to create value and deliver great care and services. The culture in senior housing is critical. So ensuring that they’re measuring customer satisfaction, they’re measuring employee satisfaction, they have initiatives in place to improve on those fronts and have strong engagement with their residents and their families and then that, you know, the managers can deliver growth and there are these operators that we can do repeat business with and have more growth moving forward as well.
And then, you know, will they engage with Ventas oi. And years ago, when we started putting the platform together, that was one of the big questions. It’s no longer a question. It’s become a competitive advantage. And the engagement couldn’t be more collaborative, more positive, more impactful than it is. And so we really like our competitive advantage to have more operators. And we’re at 44 now. Certainly, you know, we continue to plan on growing within senior housing and we believe to do that, you have to be able to manage, you know, have a platform that can, that can handle multiple operators.
Michael Stroyeck — Analyst, Green Street
Great. Thanks for the time.
Operator
Your next question comes from Michael Mueller with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.
Mike Mueller
Yeah, hi, just one here for the US portfolio. What are your current thoughts on where your AL&IL occupancy should be able to max out to over time?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Well, that remains to be seen. You know, we have, we’ve had outperformance in our il occupancy growth and you know, Debbie mentioned the demand kind of profile and we’re really not even to the point for our business yet. It’s not surprising to see independent living. You know, we’ve seen better performance in independent living as the baby boom population started turning 80 this year. Assisted living has really strong demand as well, and we think both will have really strong demand. Both will probably surpass previous industry highs and our goal is to outperform.
So we’ll tell you when we get there. But we expect both categories to be well into the 90%.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Justin’s a people in the zero loss revenue days, so
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
He won’t
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Be happy till every room is happily occupied by a happy resident. Yeah,
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
And key word is happy. Because if you’re delivering best in class care and services, then, you know, I think it’s a mandate that, you know, people should live with us. And so we’re going to do our best to deliver on that.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Mike.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Nicholas Ulico with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Elmer Chang
Thanks. Good morning. Just going back to Revel. I know you gave the stats on, you know, six years old on average. Mid 70 occupancy on average. Can you just give us a feel, though, in terms of the vacancy? Is it, is it more. Is it concentrated sort of evenly across the portfolio? Is it, you know, and more in, like, recent deliveries?
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, it’s a little. The vacancy is more in the more recent deliveries we have, you know, there’s a handful that are stabilized and then there’s the more recent deliveries that have the most upside. And so we were able to look at the track record of some of the early developments and see their lease up once they got the new management team in place and anticipate, you know, leveraging that approach combined with the OI platform to deliver more occupancy growth where we have vacancy.
Elmer Chang
Okay, thanks. And then my second question is for you, Debbie. You know, we spent, I don’t know, the vast majority of this call talking about senior housing. It’s where you’re having a lot of operating success, you’re expanding your portfolio. But it’s still chop is, you know, 56% of NOI. So my question is about, you know, the rest of the portfolio and how are you thinking about it? Because, you know, when we look at outpatient medical research, IRFs, LTCHs, health systems, they’re not, you know, realizing this is sort of, these are legacy investments.
When there was diversification within health care REITs, there’s a move away from that. Now they’re kind of not adding to your growth rate or your multiple. So my question is, you know, how are you thinking about that and is there an opportunity to JV assets sell them? How are you thinking about that and what would be the sort of trigger where you would look to perhaps reduce exposure there? Thanks.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Great. Well, when we developed our 1, 2, 3 strategy in 2023, the focus is on basically growing shop organically and externally. That’s number one and two and number three is really to drive performance across the portfolio. We have been successful in executing that strategy because as shop is growing 5th year double digit NOI growth and we’re adding 6 plus billion of investments in shop, we’re seeing that become a much larger part of our portfolio. Senior housing itself is over 60% and and by definition the other parts of the portfolio are becoming a smaller portion of the overall enterprise.
And that is all part of the strategy. As far as actions. We’ve shown a willingness over time to take actions to modify the portfolio when we really think it’s going to create long term value and we’re certainly open to that. But right now our real focus is on growing shop organically and externally and that we’re devoting, you know, all of our efforts to, with great effect to that because we think it’s creating value for stakeholders.
Elmer Chang
Okay, thanks.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Ronald Kadim with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Ronald Kamdem — Analyst, Morgan Stanley
Hey, just two quick ones. Just going back to pricing. I know the Rev poor guide was unchanged, but if you could talk about where the operators put out increases this year maybe versus last year and maybe talk about how the philosophy about new versus renewal pricing and where you think you could push
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
The revenue guide obviously increased to about eight and three quarters. And Justin will comment on the in place increases.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Yeah, we’ve had another good year. It was around 8% all in January, which is where half the increases take place. It was around 7 last year. So we’ve seen improvement in that category. There’s some underlying trends in moving rents which are very favorable as well. And as we get into a period where demand continues to pick up and occupancies continue to go up, we would expect that to continue. And you know, still like all the occupancy, upside, opportunity though. So you know, it’s kind of volume first and then you know, price is.
Opportunity with price down the road.
Ronald Kamdem — Analyst, Morgan Stanley
Got it. That’s helpful. And I guess just on the acquisition mix, I think a couple years ago you were much more focused on sort of the stabilized sort of assets. Obviously with this Revel deal and maybe other deals upcoming, is there sort of more of a shift to maybe taking on a little bit more lease up risk given the better growth, given sort of your conviction of being to get those portfolios filled? I’m just wondering if there’s sort of a shift down versus what you were doing two or three years ago.
Thanks.
Justin Hutchens — Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer
Sure. So the, you know, the focus has really been to, you know, use the market asset operator framework to determine where we make investments. And we obviously, if you get the markets right and you have assets that can be competitive within those markets, you’re well positioned. And then from there it’s finding the right operator, whether we’re keeping operators in place or transition to new managers. And by the way, we’re overwhelmingly keeping the operators. That’s been our typical approach. And you know, so once we get that right, then we’re looking for the targeted returns which at this stage are double digits to mid teens.
We’ve been delivering on low to mid teens, unlevered IRRs over the past few years. We’ve had a wide variety of different types of senior housing communities deliver on our underwritten expectations so far. And some of those did include value add opportunities. This one just happens to be a little bit bigger and so we’re able to showcase it as a case study and we’d anticipate, you know, really repeating the playbook moving forward.
Ronald Kamdem — Analyst, Morgan Stanley
Thanks so much.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
And there are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back over to Deborah A. Cafero, chairman and CEO of Ventas, for closing remarks.
Debra A. Cafaro — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Bailey. And thanks to all of you for joining us today and for your interest in Ventes as we, you know, drive forward on this multi year growth and value creation opportunity. And we look forward to seeing you in person soon.
Operator
Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.
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