For those of us who track the seniors housing and care M&A market, October was like drinking from a firehose from the start of the month to the finish. And an active earnings week kicked things into another gear. We have to start with the 73 deals made public throughout October, which is still a preliminary number that we expect to rise, but also a record for any month, ever. That is just the sixth month ever that has surpassed 60 transactions, and only the second to surpass 70. Annualized, it also equates to 876 deals. We don’t expect that to continue, especially with earnings skewing October’s numbers slightly, but we could be entering a new era of transaction activity. The previous annual record was…. 559 deals in 2022.
We were also surprised to see a number of large portfolio sales get announced at the end of the month, totaling nearly $1.5 billion across just three deals. Those included The Inland Real Estate Group’s $253 million acquisition of the Clarendale Portfolio, CareTrust REIT’s $500 million acquisition of 31 skilled nursing facilities in the Southeast, and finally Ventas’s $725 million purchase of 20 communities from Chicago Pacific Founders. It is a sign to the rest of the market that portfolio sales are back. We hear of others in the works between now and the end of the year, and likely even more in 2025.
