Another month gone and another month of occupancy gains for National Health Investors’ major tenants, according to the REIT’s latest business update. The largest operating partner, Bickford Senior Living with 42 properties in NHI’s portfolio, saw occupancy rise from 80.3% in August 2021 to 80.7% in September, for a 40-basis point increase. Holiday Retirement saw a month-to-month gain of 140 basis points from 77.5% to 78.9%, which was restated retroactively to reflect the sale of its Fort Wayne, Indiana property. Occupancy for the 18 properties still rose to 78.2% in September. And Senior Living Communities, across nine properties, saw occupancy increase 50 basis points from 80.4% to 80.9%. All are up significantly from their pandemic lows recorded earlier this year, and continued to improve throughout the late summer despite delta variant concerns and labor supply shortages. That is some much-needed good news heading into the Holidays and flu season.
The deferrals continue for NHI, however. The REIT agreed to defer $2.5 million in rent due for October from Bickford, bringing total deferred rents related to Bickford to $16.3 million for 2021. NHI also agreed to defer approximately $0.5 million in rent for two other tenants in October which is expected to be repaid with interest. In regard to Holiday’s owned portfolio acquisition by Welltower (and operating company’s acquisition by Atria Senior Living), NHI has still not received rental payments for August and September totaling $4.8 million, not any rental payment for October totaling $2.2 million. A default notice has been sent, and NHI continues to hold $8.8 million in Holiday security deposits.
All of this led to NHI collecting just 78.3% of contractual cash due for October (compared to about 88.0% in 2021 so far), as of the business update on October 27. That remaining balance for the month is comprised of the following: 9.6% in deferrals related to Bickford, 1.7% in deferrals agreed to with two tenants, 8.3% related to the legacy Holiday properties, 1.5% related to amounts expected to be collected, and 0.6% related to lower forecasted revenue from transitioned properties prior to the start of the pandemic.
