Glossary

Average Length of Stay (ALOS, Senior Housing)

Also known as: ALOS, average tenancy (senior housing), ALOS

The average duration a resident remains in a given senior housing community or level of care before moving out, whether due to death, transfer to a higher level of care, or relocation, a key driver of turnover cost and revenue stability.

ALOS varies substantially by level of care -- independent living residents may stay for years, while memory care and skilled nursing stays are typically much shorter given the acuity trajectory involved -- and it is a critical assumption in both operating pro formas and CCRC actuarial models, since shorter length of stay means higher turnover-related marketing, unit-turn, and vacancy cost per dollar of revenue generated. A community's ALOS trend also serves as an indirect signal of resident acuity mix and quality of care: an unexpectedly shortening ALOS (outside of a deliberate case-mix shift, such as adding short-stay Medicare rehab) can indicate care quality problems driving early move-outs or deaths, or family dissatisfaction, and is a metric sophisticated diligence teams request specifically rather than inferring from occupancy data alone.