• 2nd Quarter Investor Call: The Great Debates of Senior Care

    On Thursday, July 17, Managing Editor of The SeniorCare Investor Ben Swett hosted SCI’s latest webinar, dubbed The Great Debates of Senior Care, with panelists ​​Dan Revie of Ziegler, Scott Hougham of Sage, and Michael Feinstein of Focus Healthcare Partners. Issues such as the chances of having a unit shortfall, whether cap rates are too low, the... Read More »
  • Ventas Acquires in Washington State

    Ventas expanded its portfolio through a recent acquisition of a seniors housing community in Washington State. Built in 2003, MorningStar at Silver Lake is in Everett, Washington, with 113 independent living and 35 assisted living units. The in-place operator will continue to manage the community going forward. MorningStar Senior Living has been... Read More »
  • Chicago Pacific Founders Acquires Class-A Communities

    Berkadia handled the sale and financing of two Class-A independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities: Grand Living at Citrus Hills and Grand Living at Bridgewater. The pair of seniors housing communities have a combined total of 337 units, and are located in Hernando, Florida, and Coralville, Iowa, respectively. Managing... Read More »
  • Blueprint Closes Lease-to-Purchase Transaction

    A large New York-based seniors housing owner engaged Blueprint to explore the sale of an 80-unit assisted living/memory care community in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Kory Buzin and Steve Thomes handled the transaction. Ownership acquired the asset several years prior while in distress and brought on Viva Senior Living as manager to execute a... Read More »
  • BHI Provides Bridge Loan

    BHI, the U.S. branch of Bank Hapoalim B.M., provided $49 million in bridge-to-HUD financing for a portfolio of three seniors housing communities in the suburbs of Detroit. The portfolio consists of Hampton Manor of Dundee, Hampton Manor of Trenton and Hampton Manor of Hamburg. Together, the communities total 221 units, with 171 assisted living... Read More »
National Health Investors Sees Improvements

National Health Investors Sees Improvements

National Health Investors turned in a mixed second quarter but appears to see more tailwinds than headwinds as it approaches 2024. They are not out of the woods with some of their providers yet, and deferrals are still a bit of a problem, but census levels are rising, margins are increasing and they are seeing some coverage ratios increasing. Investors, however, focused on a slight decrease in earnings guidance for the rest of the year and rent deferrals, sending the share price down by 6.4% after the release. The REIT’s small SHOP portfolio (15 properties) posted a nice $200,000 increase in NOI from the first quarter to $2.1 million. The operating margin increased by 170 basis points from... Read More »
NIC’s Brian Jurutka Lands at IMA Financial Group

NIC’s Brian Jurutka Lands at IMA Financial Group

The former President and CEO of NIC, Brian Jurutka, will be taking his seniors housing knowledge and talents to IMA Financial Group, a Denver-based insurance brokerage firm specializing in risk management, insurance, wholesale brokerage and wealth management.  IMA is employee owned with more than 2,000 associates across the United States. Jurutka has joined as Vice President of seniors housing with the mandate to grow IMA’s presence in seniors housing. His rolodex will certainly help him with that task.  We enjoyed working with him over the years when he was CEO of NIC and wish him continued success in our industry. Read More »
Brookdale Senior Living Projects Growth

Brookdale Senior Living Projects Growth

Brookdale Senior Living released its second quarter 2023 earnings and seemed to gush with optimism. But remember the old saying, under promise and over perform. While there was some positive news in the quarter, they still have a long way to go. The first big news was that Adjusted EBITDA increased by 60.5% over the year-ago-quarter to $81.4 million. The bad news was that this was an 8% decline from the first quarter when it was $88.6 million. Revenues increased year over year by 10.9% while facility operating expenses increased by only 3.4%. In this inflationary environment that is quite good. The company is now cash flow positive after lease and interest expense, but before capex. Other... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Long, Slow Brookdale Recovery

60 Seconds with Swett: The Long, Slow Brookdale Recovery

Brookdale Senior Living came out with its Q2 earnings, and the occupancy results revealed just how prolonged the post-pandemic recovery has been for seniors housing and care, making many early predictions of a swift return to pre-pandemic census sound more and more ridiculous in hindsight. The good news is that Brookdale reported its highest month-end occupancy since before the pandemic, at 78.5%, up 30 basis points from the previous month and up just 10 basis points from the previous high recorded in September of last year. The bad news is the fact that Brookdale has taken this long to get back to last fall’s level of occupancy. To us, that is not “progress” in the larger goal of getting... Read More »
Ventas SHOP Improves

Ventas SHOP Improves

Ventas (NYSE: VTR) is the latest REIT to report second quarter earnings, and while performance is improving, it is not improving fast enough for some investors. Its seniors housing portfolio, while still showing improvements, lagged behind Welltower’s, and investors sent the shares down by 6.5% in early trading. Total seniors housing occupancy in its SHOP portfolio of 568 communities decreased by 30 basis points in the quarter, year over year, and declined by 20 basis points sequentially. On a same-community basis, occupancy increased by a small 10 basis points year over year, but declined by 20 basis points sequentially. Yes, the first and second quarters are usually not good for... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: The Long, Slow Brookdale Recovery

60 Seconds with Swett: Two Cheers for the SNF Rate Bump

CMS came out with its final skilled nursing facility payment rates for fiscal year 2024, and the sector will benefit from a 4.0% net increase, or approximately $1.4 billion, in Medicare Part A payments. That is up from the initially proposed 3.7% net increase and reflects a 6.4% net market basket update to the payment rates. There were a couple of negative adjustments that brought the net rate increase down, including a negative 2.3% decrease as a result of the second phase of the PDPM parity adjustment recalibration. That reduction came as no surprise, as PDPM was meant to be budget neutral and has been a net-benefit to many SNFs since the 2019 implementation. But to the SNF advocates... Read More »