• 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: Kamala Proposes Medicare Coverage of In-Home Senior Care

60 Seconds with Swett: Kamala Proposes Medicare Coverage of In-Home Senior Care

We are getting down to the wire in the 2024 presidential election, and the grasping for new groups of constituents is getting more intense. To appeal to the “sandwich generation,” or those middle-aged people that are simultaneously caring for their children and for their aging parents, Kamala Harris is now proposing a new Medicare benefit for in-home eldercare. As if we haven’t had enough politicization of long-term care from politicians this year. The proposal would cover long-term home care services, including health aides. Right now, Medicare only covers certain home health services with restrictions on hours of care per day and per week, and it does not cover 24-hour care at home like... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: 2024 Already Surpasses 500 Deals

60 Seconds with Swett: 2024 Already Surpasses 500 Deals

The optimism in the seniors housing and care industry was palpable at the NIC Fall Conference in Washington, D.C. last week, partially because of interest rates falling for the first time since the onset of the pandemic, but also partially because of the record-setting M&A streak we have been on for most of the year, so far. We are three quarters into 2024, and we have already virtually reached 2023’s annual deal total of 511 deals, at 508 deals according to LevinPro LTC. If you include the deals made public on October 1, we have surpassed that total, with an entire quarter to go. And if the anecdotal stories of BOVs, new listings and closing pipelines are true, we are going to shatter... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Kamala Proposes Medicare Coverage of In-Home Senior Care

60 Seconds with Swett: The Surprising Price of Aging at Home

Despite the enormous opportunity that demographics offer the seniors housing industry in the next decade, the affordability factor may prove to seriously sink demand for the product. That makes it that much more important for the industry to provide more middle- and lower-market options but also to demonstrate its value to the consumer. Demonstrating its value relative to alternatives such as…living at home…could prove effective too, which is why ASHA just released a new Special Issue Brief called The Surprising Price of Staying in a House: Cost Comparisons Often Favor Senior Living. The title gives it away. Prepared by Dan Bernstein, formerly of Stifel and Capital One, and available for... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Kamala Proposes Medicare Coverage of In-Home Senior Care

60 Seconds with Swett: Rates Tumble on Eve of NIC

Two years ago at the NIC Fall Conference, the spike in interest rates, with the 10-Year Treasury rate heading above 3.5%, seemed to spook many investors, as deals started disintegrating left and right. That did not help to lift the mood of everyone there. Then, last year, on the eve of NIC, rates were again spiking, this time above 4.5% and heading to 5.0%. The Fed may have stopped its rate increases, but the costs of borrowing were not on the decline. At least there was a belief that the worst had passed, or at least we were in the middle of the worst. Again, did not lift the spirit of the thousands of NIC attendees, and thank you for the open bars.  Now, we are approaching another... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Kamala Proposes Medicare Coverage of In-Home Senior Care

60 Seconds with Swett: Senior Care M&A: Ready to Explode?

The industry seems to be on the brink of a breakout M&A period, which is an astonishing thing to say when we are already in the midst of a record-breaking period of transaction activity.  The promise of an interest rate cut, even a 25-basis point cut, could usher a number of buyers off the sidelines, and if a few lower cap rate deals get announced, then a few more owners of high-quality communities could be tempted off the sidelines too. On our webinar last week covering the mid-year update of our M&A and valuation statistics, our panelists seemed to believe that a number of large deals were looming, which could help break the logjam of mostly small deals closing in the... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Where Do Valuations Stand in 2024?

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Where Do Valuations Stand in 2024?

It seems that despite the record levels of M&A activity we are witnessing in the seniors housing and care market, there are still scores of buyers and lenders still ready to pounce on the growth opportunity but have not done so yet.  They are just waiting for something, either an interest rate cut (or two), more competitive term sheets from capital providers, certain operating metrics in their respective markets, or just some reasonable assurance that the senior care industry and the capital markets will not implode in the near term. When these buyers return to the M&A market, they will need to know where pricing is for different kinds of deals, what lending options they may... Read More »