• Sabra Trims Forecast, Tempering a Solid Quarter

    Sabra Health Care REIT, Inc. announced several acquisitions in its third quarter results. The REIT acquired six managed seniors housing properties for $217.5 million with an estimated initial cash yield of 7.8%, three of which were acquired through a consolidated joint venture in which Sabra has a 95% equity interest. The company also purchased... Read More »
  • CareTrust’s Flurry of Acquisitions

    CareTrust REIT, Inc. closed a series of transactions totaling approximately $437 million in late October. In two separate deals, the REIT acquired 12 skilled nursing facilities and one skilled nursing campus located across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. The combined portfolio includes approximately 1,760 licensed skilled nursing beds and... Read More »
  • Ensign Adds to Its Utah and Alabama Footprint

    The Ensign Group, Inc. kicked off November with a couple of new deals. The publicly traded company acquired the real estate and operations of the following seven Stonehedge skilled nursing facilities in Utah: Stonehenge of American Fork (90 beds in American Fork) Stonehenge of Cedar City (50 beds in Cedar City) Stonehenge of Ogden (52 beds in... Read More »
  • Joint Venture Makes Its First Acquisition

    A joint venture between Capitol Seniors Housing and a global alternative asset manager with over $55 billion in assets under management worldwide acquired The Woods at Merrimack, a 140-unit seniors housing community in Methuen, Massachusetts. This is the first deal between CSH and the asset manager but marks the beginning of a long-term... Read More »
  • Michigan-Based Owner/Operator Buys Lansing Campus

    A public REIT engaged Blueprint in the confidential divestiture of a 53-unit assisted living and memory care campus in Lansing, Michigan. The campus features two standalone buildings separately catering to assisted living residents and those requiring memory care. The well-maintained campus was originally built in 1997 and consisted of 19... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Republican Budget and Medicaid Cuts

60 Seconds with Swett: The Republican Budget and Medicaid Cuts

There will be significant political interest in what happens to Medicaid funding as Republicans work to pass a budget and tax bill with their very slim majority. Touching entitlements remains politically risky, and the party is divided on whether any Medicaid cuts would be acceptable heading into an election cycle. At this stage, per-capita caps on federal Medicaid payments to states do not appear to be under serious consideration. However, even without direct federal cuts, rulemaking changes could materially affect Medicaid-dependent providers. CMS has issued a proposed rule that aims to close what it describes as a Medicaid “tax loophole” that some states have used to inflate federal... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Republican Budget and Medicaid Cuts

60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Is on a Roll

Welltower came out with its first quarter earnings on Tuesday, and surprise, surprise, it was yet another great quarter, and its share price jumped 3.5% immediately upon the news. It was the tenth consecutive quarter in which same store SHOP NOI growth exceeded 20%, at 21.7% in the first quarter. Guidance for same store NOI growth also rose by 100 basis points to a midpoint of 19.0% for FY2025. On Tuesday’s call, Welltower did mention that SHOP margins remain below pre-pandemic levels, but they may not be for long. Also, that issue currently plagues thousands of communities in this country and was prevalent in the years before COVID too. Perhaps that is why most of what we hear from... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: April Already Passes 50 Transactions

60 Seconds with Swett: April Already Passes 50 Transactions

Tariff turmoil? Volatile and still-high interest rates? Uncertainty surrounding Medicaid spending, labor costs and HUD’s queue length? Seniors housing and care dealmakers have looked past a lot of this noise to announce 50 transactions in the first three weeks of the second quarter, putting the market on track for the busiest M&A period ever. We know we sound like a broken record, but the start of April did feel like we reached a new level of activity, and given the conversations we’ve been having in the last few weeks, the second and third quarters may only accelerate in deal volume. For some sellers, seeing through the January 2025 rate increases was enough to enter the transaction... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Republican Budget and Medicaid Cuts

60 Seconds with Swett: Adapting to the 2025 M&A Market

The M&A market is slowly shifting, with increased liquidity, further stabilizing operations and some larger and higher quality deals hitting the market. Perhaps things are not moving as quickly as some want, and cap rates are not compressing enough to attract certain sellers to the market. But interest rates have been the major drag on dealmaking, values and lending, and the recent chaos around tariffs did not help. So how are dealmakers taking advantage of the current market dynamics? When does it make sense to sell a Class-A stabilized asset these days if cap rates are not where they were several years ago? And what is going on in the debt markets that potential buyers need to be... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Republican Budget and Medicaid Cuts

60 Seconds with Swett: Medicare Advantage Sees A Pay Bump

As the healthcare industry braces for whatever impacts tariffs may have on operations, an impossible task to predict accurately given the flux on that matter, providers also are welcoming a new head of CMS, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was confirmed by the Senate last week. There is some uncertainty on how the Trump Administration will treat healthcare providers overall, specifically in the senior care industry, with some positives coming from the end of the minimum staffing mandate and an overall friendlier business climate, versus the threat of increased scrutiny on Medicare and Medicaid spending with respect to fraud and abuse potentially contributing to falling revenues. When reading the tea... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Here We Go Again

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Here We Go Again

Investigate, investigate, investigate. Regulate, regulate, regulate. Why not assist? Why not help? Why not try to understand? Liz, Ron and Kirsten, of U.S. Senate fame, have asked the GAO to investigate the assisted living industry and to see if federal oversight is needed. Really? Are we going down this road again? How did that work out for the nursing home industry? As we know, the assisted living sector is predominantly private pay, unlike nursing homes, but the senators are using information from state Medicaid agencies to back up their claims. I suppose I could see them investigating any assisted living community that is receiving Medicaid funds to make sure the money is wisely spent,... Read More »