• Live Oak and Berkadia Team Up on Bridge Loan

    Live Oak Bank recently closed a $34.3 million bridge loan in partnership with Berkadia Commercial Mortgage for a two-property portfolio owned and operated by BrightSpace Senior Living. The communities are located in the Nashville, Tennessee, and Boise, Idaho MSAs. The loan was structured in an A/B arrangement, with Berkadia funding the... Read More »
  • California Memory Care Communities Receive HUD Loans

    Lument closed two HUD loans totaling $20.7 million to refinance two memory care communities in northern California. Doug Harper, managing director at Lument, co-originated the loan with Grant Goodman of G Capital. The two communities are Crescent Oaks Memory Care, which features 22 units and 36 beds in Sunnyvale, and Silver Oaks Memory Care,... Read More »
  • Berkadia Handles Two Seniors Housing Transactions

    Berkadia closed the sale of two separate assets in Florida and Georgia. First, Berkadia was engaged by a national owner/operator in the sale of a CCRC in South Florida. The property appears to be Abbey Delray, a 505-unit community originally built in 1979 in Delray Beach that features 327 independent living units, 48 assisted living units, 30... Read More »
  • Fortress Buys Large Seniors Housing Campus

    Fortress Investment Group just purchased one of the largest rental seniors housing communities in the country, adding The Village at Gainesville in Gainesville, Florida, to its portfolio. Regionally anchored by the University of Florida and the innovative UF Health network, and located directly across from SantaFe College, the 100+ acre campus... Read More »
  • Interview with R.J. DeBee of BBG Real Estate Services

    Ben Swett, Managing Editor of The SeniorCare Investor, sat down with R.J. DeBee of BBG Real Estate Services to talk about the findings from BBG’s annual investor survey. DeBee shares his thoughts on what was surprising about the results and highlights the points he agrees with. You can view the survey results here. Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Occupancy Optimism in the Seniors Housing Market

60 Seconds with Swett: Occupancy Optimism in the Seniors Housing Market

When we did our analysis of NIC MAP census data in late 2020, we discovered that from 2009 to 2020, there was only one year when the assisted living sector did not report a Q1 decline in average occupancy. That was in 2012, when census stayed flat. Not only that, every year after 2012 reported a Q2 decline as well. All this showed us that the road to recovery for the seniors housing market would be long following the pandemic, and much longer than most optimistic predictions at the time. Last year’s first quarter continued the trend, as the industry bottomed out and most public providers hit their lows too. Although, vaccines had only just started being distributed to seniors, and there... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Labor Headwinds Everywhere

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Labor Headwinds Everywhere

In case you did not notice, practically every equity analyst report we read on healthcare companies in the past four weeks had “labor headwinds” either in the title or the first paragraph. And I am not talking about senior care companies. These were home health, managed care, PMGs, you name it. Providers just can’t find the staff they need, and when they do, it is expensive. But you know that. Perhaps if we enter into a small recession that will help with the labor shortage, but don’t hold your breath. I’m not. We have a systemic problem, and it needs major changes if it is going to be fixed for the senior care industry. And the senior care industry must be a leader on the labor front to... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Best Senior Living List Is Revealed

60 Seconds with Swett: Best Senior Living List Is Revealed

U.S. News & World Report came out with its first ever “Best Senior Living” list on Tuesday, creating new designations of Best Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care and CCRCs. U.S. News and its survey provider, Dr. Jacquelyn Kung’s Activated Insights, administered satisfaction surveys at 3,045 communities throughout the country between March 2021 and February 2022, evaluating four basic categories: community & activity, food & dining, caregiving, and management & staff. Also, family responses were taken into account for assisted living scores, and memory care community scores were derived solely from family surveys. Residents tended to respond more positively than... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: OHI Soars After Q1 Earnings 

60 Seconds with Swett: OHI Soars After Q1 Earnings 

Omega Healthcare Investors came out with its first quarter earnings on Monday May 2nd, and its share price soared throughout Tuesday, peaking at 28.89 per share (as of this filming), or up 14.8% from its previous close at $25.13. Granted, that is still not far off of its 52-week low of $24.81, but good news is good news.  First off, the company announced that it successfully sold 22 of its struggling Gulf Coast Health Care skilled nursing facilities, representing the majority of that portfolio for $318 million in cash. Gulf Coast had stopped paying contractual rent in the second quarter of 2021 as it was in the process of filing for chapter 11, so getting these facilities off its plate... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: REITs and the Post-Pandemic M&A Strategy 

60 Seconds with Swett: REITs and the Post-Pandemic M&A Strategy 

Coming out of the pandemic, the senior care REITs have had their difficulties dealing with low occupancy, operator/tenant problems and staffing shortages, like most in the industry. Rent collection rates and lease coverages have been less than ideal in more than a few cases, a couple of high-profile disputes played out, and REITs even were the target (albeit misguided) of the Biden Administration’s critique of the skilled nursing industry. However, after the major balance sheet decisions they made early in the pandemic and some strategic divestments, many REITs are still poised to grow on a massive scale, if the right deals come along.   What properties are they targeting, and... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Uncontrolled Spread: Why Covid-19 Crushed Us

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Uncontrolled Spread: Why Covid-19 Crushed Us

If there is one book you should read to really understand what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s excellent book on this topic, called Uncontrolled Spread. I just finished it, and while dense in some parts on the scientific aspects, it does a lot to explain, and expose, why so much went wrong in our healthcare system, and why nursing homes should not necessarily get the blame that has been heaped on them. This is important because the lawsuits are starting to pile up, and the blame game is going to get intense, with the federal government not helping matters.  The reality is that no on really knew anything about this new coronavirus,... Read More »