Last week, we discussed the stock performance of the seniors housing and healthcare providers. Now, it’s the healthcare REITs’ turn. Overall, it was a good first half of the year, with all of them posting price increases, with the exception of Senior Housing Properties Trust, reflecting its Five Star problems. Its share price tumbled by 29.4%. The top performer was New Senior Investment Group, but it came off a terrible 2018 (down 45%) and still trades below what it did 18 months ago.
The star of the year, so far, is CareTrust REIT which is up 28.8% after being the second-best performer last year with a price increase of 10%. And then there is HCVenTower, otherwise known as the Big Three, with a combined market cap of $73.7 billion, or three and a half times the rest of the REITs combined. All posted increases between 14% and 17%, and all appear to be on the path to growth again with most of the major divestiture programs completed, but with some stragglers left to be dealt with.
