• 60 Seconds with Swett: Navigating the Next Five Years in Seniors Housing M&A

    Are we entering the golden age of seniors housing? Next year, the first baby boomers will start turning 80, and with the current lack of new construction, occupancy rates are already rising before the real demographic wave hits. Many investors, both veterans and those new to our space, will feel pressure to grow their seniors housing holdings to... Read More »
  • Blackstone Sheds Another Asset from Its Seniors Housing Portfolio

    Blueprint handled a couple of sales in Florida and Nevada. The first in Florida involved a global private equity firm selling a 145-unit assisted living and memory care community in Boca Raton, Florida. Ben Firestone, Dillon Rudy and Jacob Ghel of Blueprint facilitated The Atrium at Boca Raton’s ownership transfer. The community presented certain... Read More »
  • CareTrust REIT Establishes SHOP Platform

    Three Texas seniors housing communities with 270 assisted living and memory care units were acquired by CareTrust REIT, Inc. The publicly traded REIT purchased the communities for $40 million, or $148,100 per unit. This marks the first investment of CareTrust’s SHOP platform. The communities were 86% occupied at the time of acquisition and will... Read More »
  • Ensign Grows Through Separate Transactions in Three States

    The Ensign Group, Inc. increased its portfolio through three separate acquisitions in Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. The publicly traded provider expanded its growing Midwest footprint through its Kansas acquisition of the real estate and operations of Willow Point Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a 45-bed skilled nursing facility in Kansas... Read More »
  • Developer/Operator Divests to PE Firm

    A developer and operator sold Rivertown Ridge, a Class-A seniors housing community in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan, to a private equity firm. This community, built in 2020, features 152 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care, and has exhibited strong performance.  The seller, Redstone Homes, was... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: The Future of Seniors Housing

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: The Future of Seniors Housing

Five years ago, at the onset of the COVID pandemic, I wrote a long white paper on the future of seniors housing based on what was happening in the Spring of 2020. The future was questionable. Now, five years later, it seems as if nothing has changed, and everything has changed. I had to miss my first Fall NIC in 35 years, but I heard there was a lot of talk about the future and what may happen, and that the “feel” today was much like the post-recession years of 2013 to 2017. Everything looking up, values rising, investors jumping in, sentiment at a recent peak, lenders very competitive, and so on. The only thing missing today compared with back then is the lack of new development. So,... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Getting Realistic with New Development

60 Seconds with Swett: Getting Realistic with New Development

The positive mood at the NIC Fall Conference was contagious, as dealmakers were looking forward to a potential record-breaking fourth quarter. We at LevinPro are also gearing up to cover a new elevated level of M&A activity and pricing in the coming months, with our updated valuation tool better accounting for today’s market and the estimated prices for higher-quality, better-performing properties. But one disappointment from the conference may have been the conversation surrounding new development, particularly building for the middle market. We don’t fault anyone for being constrained by the simple math of the cost to build and the rents needed to cover those costs. If anything, the... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Getting Realistic with New Development

60 Seconds with Swett: Heading Down to Austin

We are looking forward to flyin’ down to Austin next week for the NIC Fall Conference, as we are anticipating a very positive mood among the attendees. That is because M&A activity is high and healthy. The capital markets keep improving from a deal terms and liquidity perspective. The promise of a 25-basis point interest rate cut is probably boosting spirits more than actually making much of a financial impact on the cost of borrowing.  Meanwhile the operating environment continues to make steady progress, and property values are on the rise, at least according to our latest valuation stats available on LevinPro LTC, which could entice more sellers into the market with their... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Getting Realistic with New Development

60 Seconds with Swett: An Update to Our Valuation Statistics

The deal dynamics of 2025 appear to have changed very little, with a majority of transactions featuring value-add properties, a slowly increasing share of stabilized, Class-A properties being sold, steady improvements to the capital markets and liquidity and cap rates that have moved only slightly downwards. Taking all of those factors into account, we would expect values, both apples to apples and on an average basis, to have risen in 2025, so far. We will be presenting our latest valuation statistics, derived from our proprietary LevinPro LTC data, in our August 28th webinar, titled A Mid-Year Valuation Stats Update, sponsored by HealthTrust. Plus, our three expert panelists will be... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Getting Realistic with New Development

60 Seconds with Swett: SNFs Get a Boost from CMS

Support for the skilled nursing sector continues to flow from the government, both state and federal, and CMS finalized its FY2026 SNF Prospective Payment System rate increase of 3.2%, based on the final SNF market basket increase of 3.3% plus a 0.6% market basket forecast error adjustment and a negative 0.7% productivity adjustment, amounting to an increase in SNF PPS payments of $1.16 billion compared with FY2025. That is down from the 4.2% increase in reimbursement from the previous fiscal year but up from CMS’s initial proposed increase of 2.8%, announced back in April. And it comes after numerous states have already started to reconcile their Medicaid rates more closely with the... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Continues To Climb

60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Continues To Climb

The Welltower juggernaut just keeps on rolling, as another great earnings report sent shares up by more than 4.7% from their previous close to a new record high of $165.87 as of this filming. Its market cap pushed well beyond $100 billion, solidifying the REIT’s position as our industry’s first $100 billion dollar company. The board of directors may have also surprised a few by declaring a cash dividend for the second quarter of $0.74 per share, or a 10.4% increase from the prior quarter. The REIT is still sitting on approximately $9.5 billion of available liquidity too, including $4.5 billion of available cash and restricted cash plus full capacity under its $5 billion line of credit. So... Read More »