Andrew Christman, a reporter for Senior Housing News, recently interviewed executives from several senior housing chains. They all foresaw the new tariffs resulting in significant price increases for many items, plus the potential need for wage increases if the cost of living goes up significantly. Here are a few quotes from the article. (You can read the whole thing here.)

Greg Puklicz, president of 12 Oaks Senior Living, expects a spike in operating costs. 12 Oaks will probably be paying higher prices for food, energy and medical supplies imported from other countries like Canada. He notes that the impact on resident fees will be delayed because of annual contracts. But even if fees can be increased to cover the additional costs, he wonders how much more future residents are willing to pay without necessarily getting more value.

Charter Senior Living CEO Keven Bennema worries that the cost of goods “essential to the day-to-day operations” could increase, specifically food and medical supplies.

American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) CEO David Schless said that “imposing tariffs on our largest trading partners will likely impact a broad swath of the economy, including senior living.”

Caroline Clapp, of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, notes the difficulty for current construction projects to be underwritten and said that increased construction costs would be an “additional obstacle to sector growth.”

If the economy really deteriorates, there could be an impact on housing values, and that could cause potential residents to reconsider moving to a retirement community. “We’re seeing home values likely reduced in a continuing deflationary environment,” Puklicz said. “It’s going to erode away at the nest eggs that seniors have that they were planning to use for retirement.”

Of course, we don’t yet know exactly what the impacts of the tariffs will be—or even to what extent they will actually be enforced—so the comments of these senior housing executives are speculative. Given the constant variability of the messages from the White House, things might change tomorrow.