• Strawberry Fields REIT Announces SNF Acquisition

    Strawberry Fields REIT acquired a skilled nursing facility with 100 beds near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, utilizing cash from its balance sheet. The facility is leased to an existing third-party operator that entered into a master lease for this facility, as well as for another facility that Strawberry Fields acquired in December 2024 (a skilled... Read More »
  • Family Office Acquires Two Communities

    Berkadia was engaged by a national owner/operator in its divestment of two seniors housing communities on Florida’s east coast. The communities are in Port St. Lucie and Port Orange with 171 assisted living and memory care units. The buyer was a central Florida-based family office. Mike Garbers, Cody Tremper, Dave Fasano and Ross Sanders handled... Read More »
  • Kentucky SNF Sees Active Bidding Environment

    Kyle Hallion and Ben Firestone of Blueprint were engaged to sell a 54-bed skilled nursing facility located 45 minutes northwest of the Lexington, Kentucky MSA, and successfully closed the deal on May 1, approximately 30 days prior to contractual closing. The facility offered a track record of strong occupancy with clear revenue upside via CMI... Read More »
  • ESI Closes Record-Setting SNF Sale in North Carolina

    A skilled nursing sale in North Carolina set a new pricing record in the state, with Evans Senior Investments handling the deal. ESI was engaged by an independent owner/operator to divest Smithfield Manor, a 160-bed skilled nursing facility in Smithfield, North Carolina (about 25 miles southeast of Raleigh). At the time of marketing, the... Read More »
  • Growth-Oriented Buyer Acquires AL/MC Portfolio in Competitive Market

    Blueprint handled the divestment of an assisted living and memory care portfolio dubbed Project Viking. The portfolio includes multiple well-located communities of newer vintage in Minnesota. Connor Doherty and Ryan Kelly handled the transaction.  The opportunity presented the ability to acquire substantial scale in a state known for its... Read More »
60 Seconds with Monroe: Are We Getting Too Big Again?

60 Seconds with Monroe: Are We Getting Too Big Again?

One of the consequences of the pandemic, one of many, is that the differentiation between the best operators and the not so good has been increasingly exposed. And of course, investors will seek out the best to manage their properties. But as this happens, the operators who are doing a good or even great job today will start to be spread too thin. Managing 20 communities is a lot different than 50, 100 or more. You can have the procedures and policies in place for 100 properties, but you do start to lose that personal touch, especially if the CEO is very hands on. With REITs and other investors doubling down on either their best operators, or finding others that they perceive to be top... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

As always, it was great to see so many of our industry friends, and plenty of new faces, at the NIC Conference in Chicago last week. And typical of most conferences, many asked us what we thought the mood of the conference was. We wondered if it would be at all better than the grim 2022 Fall conference when the capital markets had fundamentally shifted for the worse. Unfortunately, we cannot say it was better than that. With the 10-year Treasury rate touching 5% at the start of the conference and consistent signals from the Fed that interest rates would be “higher, for longer,” any hope for an improving capital markets environment unleashing a flood of financings and M&A (at higher... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

60 Seconds with Swett: Skilled Nursing M&A in 2023 and Beyond

Skilled nursing investors, operators and dealmakers have been on quite the rollercoaster the last several years, with COVID initially threatening the life of the industry quickly shifting to an exuberant M&A market that saw buyers clamor for facilities of all qualities, and paying up for them too. Now, higher capital costs have tempered some of that excitement, and the industry faces a new threat: the minimum staffing mandate. It is safe to say, the party is over, but M&A volume has not fallen off a cliff either. Neither have values. So, how are dealmakers evaluating this new market we are in, and how will investment strategies, the lending environment or valuations change? Join us... Read More »
60 Seconds with Monroe: Are We Getting Too Big Again?

60 Seconds with Monroe: Finding A Solution For LTC Funding

My friend Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform, has been a consistent and persistent advocate for reforming the Medicaid system and getting Americans out of the Medicaid-dependency mindset. He just published, with the Paragon Health Institute, the follow-on to his paper “Long-Term Care: The Problem.” Available now is “Long-Term Care: The Solution.” While I was hoping for something completely new and creative, I can’t disagree with his recommendations, which include 1) stop the ability to purchase Medicaid-exempt assets, 2) eliminate the home equity exemption, 3) ban Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts, 4) disallow Medicaid compliant annuities, and 5) increase the... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

60 Seconds with Swett: 2023 Deal Volume at 2019 Levels

Dealmakers have a lot to be frustrated with in the M&A market right now, with valuations low, deal processes taking longer than ever, scarcity in the debt markets and other headwinds making their impact. But despite it all, deal volume was actually historically healthy in the third quarter of 2023.  There were 115 publicly announced transactions in the quarter. That is down from the 120 deals made public in Q2:23 and the 140 from last year’s third quarter. But the average deals per quarter for 2023 at 115 is equal to the average deals per quarter in 2019, a time of cheap and abundant capital and before anyone knew what COVID-19 was. Plus, on an annualized basis, Q3’s total would... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Gloom Prevails at the NIC Conference

60 Seconds with Swett: SNFs Get a Bad Grade

It was unfortunate, but unsurprising, to see that in a recent Gallup poll, a plurality of those surveyed gave SNFs either a D or an F grade on overall quality of care. We say unsurprising not because we agree with that for the majority of facilities, although there are certainly those guilty of providing subpar care, but because of the general negative perception the public has on SNFs. Cases of bad care will always spread in the media and by word-of-mouth faster than the many instances of good care, and only 9% of respondents gave SNFs either B (good) or A (excellent) grades in the survey.  That is not good, but let’s face it, the skilled nursing business is also a thankless... Read More »