• Strawberry Fields REIT’s 2025 Growth

    Strawberry Fields REIT reported its 2025 operating results, noting that it was the best year since its inception more than 10 year ago. The company posted significant increases in FFO and AFFO, and it completed more than $110 million in several new acquisitions. Its portfolio now includes 131 skilled nursing facilities, 10 assisted living... Read More »
  • Owner/Operator Exits SNF Sector

    An independent owner/operator exited the skilled nursing sector through its divestment of Sunrise Country Manor, which has 80 beds in Milford, Nebraska, and features a mix of private and semi-private units. It maintained an 83% occupancy rate at the time of the sale. A regional operator looking to expand its footprint in Nebraska acquired the... Read More »
  • Assisted Living Providers Join Forces 

    Majestic Residences recently expanded its footprint, adding 17 assisted living communities and six in active development, through its acquisition of Avendelle Senior Living. Avendelle will be integrated into the Majestic Residences platform, with Avendelle’s corporate team retained. The combined organization will operate under the Majestic... Read More »
  • Investor Secures Financing and Acquires Class-A Community

    BWE’s Seniors Housing Capital Markets Team sold and financed The Capstone at Station Camp, which sits in the Nashville, Tennessee MSA. Built in 2021, the Class-A assisted living and memory care community comprises 100 units in Gallatin. It is operated by TerraBella Senior Living.  BWE represented the seller, Hunt Midwest. The buyer was a... Read More »
  • Multiple SNFs Sell in Separate Transactions

    A large skilled nursing company sold its 181-bed skilled nursing facility to a private investment firm based in New York, exiting South Carolina in the process. The buyer had an existing skilled nursing footprint, and will be leasing this facility to a regional operator. The building was older, built in the 1980s, and was around 80% occupied at... 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 »
Fairview/Sanford Health Merger Called Off

Fairview/Sanford Health Merger Called Off

The merger between Fairview Health Services and Sanford Health was called off after Sanford announced on July 27 that it was discontinuing the process. The transaction would have led to the combination of two of the largest not-for-profit senior living operators in the country, Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society (whose parent organization is Sanford) and Ebenezer (which is a subsidiary of Fairview). Sanford owns more than 200 Good Samaritan locations, and Minnesota-based Fairview has more than 90 senior living locations managed by Ebenezer. The combined entity would have owned 58 hospitals, as well.  Announced in late 2022, the merger was expected to be completed in March 2023,... Read More »
Newmark Hires Capital Markets Veteran

Newmark Hires Capital Markets Veteran

Nearly two months after Newmark lost David Fasano and Ross Sanders to Berkadia, the firm is building its team with the hire of capital markets debt and structured finance veteran Bill Fishel as executive vice chairman. Fishel will specialize in raising debt and equity capital for institutional-grade assets and developments across North America, with a focus on structured finance. He will report to Chad Lavender, president of capital markets for North America at Newmark. In his 14-year career, Fishel has executed over $15 billion in financing for a wide range of asset classes, including retail, office, multifamily, industrial, hospitality, single tenant, land and data center properties. He... Read More »
Grandbridge Hired to Sell CCRC

Grandbridge Hired to Sell CCRC

Grandbridge Real Estate Capital has been hired to sell a 329-unit CCRC in Port Washington, New York, on Long Island. The entrance-fee community opened in 2010 on 8.9 acres, and the current bankruptcy is its third, and hopefully, final Chapter 11 filing. It is a beautiful community that had bad timing, opening at the end of the Great Recession during a very weak housing market, restructuring its debt twice, and then had to face the pandemic. In 2019, average occupancy was 93%, but it dropped with the pandemic. The community has approximately 229 independent living units, 26 assisted living units, 18 memory care units and 56 skilled beds. In-place IL rents average $5,800 per month and the... Read More »