• Brookdale Occupancy Gains

    Continuing a steady stream of small occupancy increases, Brookdale Senior Living bucked the historical norm of first quarter census declines for the seniors housing industry. In the first quarter, the monthly weighted average occupancy increased by 20 basis points to 79.5% in March. In addition, month-end occupancy hit a five-year high of 80.9%,... Read More »
  • CareTrust and Real Estate Investor Acquire in California

    Nick Stahler, Michael Mooney and Hap Knowles of the Knapp-Stahler Group at Marcus & Millichap closed the sale of a senior care campus in Los Alamitos, California. The campus includes a 150-bed skilled nursing facility (Alamitos West Health and Rehabilitation) and a 68-unit/140-bed RCFE (Katella Senior Living Community). The skilled nursing... Read More »
  • Alta Senior Living Expands in California

    Alta Senior Living has expanded its portfolio with the acquisition of a seniors housing community in Sacramento, California, through a joint venture with its capital partner, Brasa Capital Management. Built in 2017, The Village at Heritage Park features 162 total units, with 54 independent living, 60 assisted living and 48 memory care units. The... Read More »
  • Lee & Associates’ First Seniors Transaction Closes

    Lee & Associates’ Senior Housing team, led by Robert Black, was engaged by Sugar Creek Capital, which specializes in tax credit investments nationwide, in its divestment of an outlier asset. Built in 1985 with a renovation and expansion of 48 units in 2016, Terrace Retirement Community comprises 178 independent living units in Columbia,... Read More »
  • Interview with Bryan Lockard of JLL Value and Risk Advisory

    The SeniorCare Investor’s Ben Swett sat down with JLL’s Bryan Lockard to discuss the firm’s latest investor survey and any surprising results in it. The conversation also covered prices and cap rates seen for the different property groups in 2025, so far. Read More »
60 Seconds with Stephen Monroe: What History Can Tell Us

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 »
60 Seconds with Swett: Reflections on Spring NIC

60 Seconds with Swett: Reflections on Spring NIC

Maybe it was because Spring is around the corner, but the mood at the NIC in Dallas was relatively better, especially compared with the mood of the last three conferences when rising interest rates soured things in Fall 2022, the banking crisis of early 2023 affected last Spring and last Fall most were resigned to the reality of high rates and low values. That acceptance of the present market conditions means that almost no one is happy, but that they are more ready and willing to do deals again. And we heard of more performing, Class-A properties and portfolios hitting the market and receiving interest from buyers. More than in the previous year. On the lending side, banks are not totally... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Reflections on Spring NIC

60 Seconds with Swett: Memory Care Still Commands a Premium

We are just a couple of days away from publishing the 29th Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, which is available to all LevinPro LTC and LTC News subscribers as part of their subscriptions, and the impact of the capital markets upheaval on valuations affected nearly all property types in 2023. Still, a few historical norms remained. For instance, as they usually do, buyers placed a premium on memory care, whether standalone or as a portion of an assisted living community, over traditional AL properties in 2023, averaging $168,700 per unit versus $95,700 per unit, respectively. Both are down from their 2022 averages, according to the Report. Yes, these communities with memory... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Reflections on Spring NIC

60 Seconds with Swett: Where Are Senior Care Property Values Now?

Where do values stand for seniors housing and care properties after more than a year of capital markets upheaval and persistent, post-pandemic operational challenges? Well, after an exhaustive study of our proprietary M&A statistics, we will be previewing the results of the 29th Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report in a webinar this Thursday February 22 at 1pm Eastern.  In addition, our distinguished group of panelists will discuss the market dynamics informing buyers and sellers’ decisions then and now, how the lending environment shifted and shaped M&A strategies, whether a wave of distress and defaults is at last on its way in 2024, and their own predictions for... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Private Equity Ownership in Health Care

60 Seconds with Swett: SNF Values Drop

We are in the middle of compiling our 2023 M&A statistics for the soon-to-be-released 29th Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, and the difficult year that was 2023 is coming clearer into focus, at least from a valuation perspective. We’ll preview the skilled nursing market first, which remained relatively strong despite the numerous headwinds facing the sector. On the other hand, some of the tailwinds like rising reimbursement rates, falling supply of licensed beds and revenues from related ancillary businesses have helped prop up valuations. We heard consistently throughout 2023 that values for SNFs had dropped between 10-15% from their peak around 2021 and early 2022, BUT... Read More »