What a month it has been for Senior Living Investment Brokerage, and it’s only been a few days. After a stellar start to February when the firm announced five transactions comprising eight seniors housing properties across the country, SLIB brokers announced six closings on the first two days of March. Four deals closed in the Southeast, starting with the sale of a 46-unit assisted living/memory care community in Gainesville, Georgia, north of Atlanta. Daniel Geraghty and Bradley Clousing handled the deal on behalf of a group of five TIC investors that originally bought the property in 2006. The TIC sponsor had since filed for bankruptcy and subsequently took control of the asset.
Built in 1996, the community was just 36% occupied by the end of September 2020. It was also losing money on nearly $730,000 of revenues. Taking over the asset, and the responsibility of turning it around, was a primarily skilled nursing owner/operator, which is looking to expand its assisted living presence in the state. They paid $2.325 million, or $50,500 per unit. At that vintage, and with that occupancy, the price seems right.
Over the border in Jacksonville, Florida, Mr. Clousing was joined by Matthew Alley and Jeff Binder to sell an 84-unit AL/MC community on behalf of the seller which had reached the end of their investment horizon with this asset and chose to divest. Built in 2014, the well-maintained community has mostly private rooms, with six semiprivate units. The buyer was a partnership between a regional operator and two investment firms, one based in Florida and the other in New York. No purchase price was disclosed.
Messrs. Clousing, Binder and Geraghty then went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in the northern part of the state along the Tennessee River, to sell a 42-unit assisted living/special care community for an undisclosed amount. Built in 1999, this was an operational outlier of the operator, Brookdale Senior Living, and the buyer is a local partnership between an individual investor and operating partner that should be able to put some TLC into the community.
Mr. Clousing and Dave Balow next sold a 70-unit assisted living/memory care community in Elkins, West Virginia. The seller decided to divest in order to focus on its core markets. Operations remained steady throughout the duration of the transaction, which was not negatively impacted by COVID-19. SLIB ran a strategic, national search to identify the buyer, which ended up being a not-for-profit skilled nursing facility located right down the road from the community. The SNF wished to expand its level of care. Again, the purchase price was not disclosed.
There were a couple of other SLIB deals that closed at the start of March, which we will profile later this week.
