• Did Blackstone Sell Too Soon?

    According to recent media reports, real estate investor The Blackstone Group has sold and is in the process of selling about $1.8 billion in seniors housing assets. It wants to completely exit the seniors housing business which they claim has been a disaster for them. One report stated that they have lost upwards of $600 million across the... Read More »
  • Brookdale Continues Winning Streak

    The big question is, why did this not happen earlier? We are talking about Brookdale Senior Living’s occupancy recovery, and why the previous leadership seemed unable to move the needle, but as soon as they were gone, everything has been on an upward trend. Hmmmmm.  Things are not perfect at Brookdale, but they never were. However,... Read More »
  • National Health Investors Adjusts Its SHOP Portfolio

    National Health Investors, Inc. announced some adjustments to its SHOP portfolio, raising its full-year guidance for the third consecutive quarter due to the contribution of recently transitioned and newly acquired SHOP properties, along with continued strength in its investment pipeline. The REIT also had an update on its lease agreement with... Read More »
  • Strawberry Fields’ Three Separate SNF Transactions

    Strawberry Fields REIT, Inc. announced three separate skilled nursing transactions that closed during the third quarter. Two previously announced acquisitions were in Missouri, and the recently announced purchase was in Oklahoma.  In July, the REIT completed the acquisition of nine skilled nursing facilities with 686 beds in Missouri. The... Read More »
  • Receivership Estate Sells in Alabama

    Kory Buzin and Steve Thomes of Blueprint handled another successful sale on behalf of a lender and special servicer, this time involving a receivership estate in Mobile, Alabama. Knollwood Point, a 2001-vintage, 46-unit assisted living and memory care community, struggled in recent years as a result of challenged occupancy and volatile staffing.... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: REITs and PE Will Be Attacked Again

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: REITs and PE Will Be Attacked Again

The Chapter 11 filing by Steward Health Care was not a surprise to anyone in the healthcare world. Its former PE owner, Cerberus Capital, will be attacked because they made a significant profit when they finally exited their 2010 investment 10 years later. No one wants to remember that they bought six failing hospitals in Massachusetts and rejuvenated them. Without that purchase, there was a good chance they would have been shuttered. Medical Properties Trust will be attacked because its leases ended up being too expensive, even though it helped Steward grow, took an equity interest in the company and provided new capital.  Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, and then COVID hit, and... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Development Dilemma

60 Seconds with Swett: The Development Dilemma

The difficult thing about development right now is that it is both a very tough time to build because of higher capital costs but also may be the time that many developers and investors need to start projects. We know, easy for us to say, especially as the Fed signals that rates are likely to stay high for longer and as the 10-year Treasury rate peaks above 4.5% again. But the reality is that if indeed there will be a supply and demand imbalance in a couple of years, then the predevelopment work (if not shovels in the ground) has to start right now because of how long it would take to get those developments open and leased up by the time baby boomers begin turning 80. That process takes a... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Development Dilemma

60 Seconds with Swett: CMS Raises the Minimum Staffing Mandate

On Monday, CMS came out with its final minimum staffing standards for nursing homes, but the eventual outcome is anything but final. Despite the outcry from nursing home providers from the previous proposed mandate of three hours per resident per day, asking simple questions like how can we pay for this and where will this newly needed staff come from, CMS has now raised the minimum to 3.48 hours per resident day, which includes .55 hours for an RN and 2.45 hours that can be fulfilled by a nurse aid, now including LPNs, which were excluded from the prior version of the rule. It will also require facilities to have a registered nurse onsite 24/7. The rule will be implemented gradually over... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Development Dilemma

60 Seconds with Swett: The Battle of the Brokers

This Thursday, April 18th at 1pm ET, The SeniorCare Investor will be hosting its first ever Quarterly Investor Call, a virtual event available to our readers that will bring together the latest M&A and valuation data from our platform LevinPro LTC, relevant deal case studies and a robust Q&A period with our audience. Editor-at-large Steve Monroe and I will be joined by three active brokers, Ryan Maconachy of Newmark, Matt Alley of SLIB and Alex Florea of Blueprint, to discuss the current dealmaking environment, everything from the transaction process to buyer and seller dynamics, to pricing and, of course, to financing all sorts of deals. So, if you are thinking about buying,... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: REITs and PE Will Be Attacked Again

60 Seconds with Stephen Monroe: What History Can Tell Us

As many of you know, I like history. And I like looking back in time at our industry. That is how in October 2020 we concluded that we would not get back to pre-pandemic occupancy levels until 2024 to 2025. It was an analysis no one wanted to hear, but the smart ones removed their rose-tinted glasses. In this month’s issue of The SeniorCare Investor, we will take a 10-year lookback at the three largest owners of seniors housing assets: Welltower, Ventas and Brookdale Senior Living. If you had to guess, when do you think occupancy peaked before the pandemic? How about operating margins? How far are they from getting back to “normal?” While progress has been made, what is keeping them from... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Private Equity Ownership in Health Care

60 Seconds with Swett: Private Equity Ownership in Health Care

We have long been tired of the often-inaccurate claims of “private equity’s takeover of the nursing home industry” and the too-simplistic or misleading correlations between PE ownership and quality of care. Of course there are never any mentions of the need for SNF owners to make a profit or the benefits of fresh capital injections into the industry and into aging physical plants. We have also written several times that, according to our data, PE firms have only been the buyers in about 5% of SNF deals, a share that has actually shrunk in the last couple of years.  Seniors housing was higher, above 10% of acquisitions, but a study done by our sister site LevinPro HC shows that several... Read More »