• Sabra’s Q4 Deals Push 2025 New Investments to $450 Million

    Sabra Health Care REIT released its fourth quarter results. On a year-over-year basis, same-store cash NOI increased 12.6% for the fourth quarter of 2025, while the 2025 quarterly year-over-year average increase was 15.0%, inclusive of the stabilized facilities formerly operated by Holiday Retirement.  Its Q4 acquisitions brought the... Read More »
  • CareTrust Closes 2025 with 169 New Property Investments

    CareTrust REIT came out with its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 earnings and is continuing on its growth trajectory. In Q4, the REIT added 19 properties to its portfolio, comprising 14 triple-net leased skilled nursing facilities, two triple-net leased seniors housing communities and three SHOP communities, all totaling $561.5 million in... Read More »
  • Separate Sellers Divest in Florida

    Berkadia announced two seniors housing closings, both involving communities in the Sunshine State. First, Berkadia represented a Maryland-based private equity investment firm in its divestment of a 130-unit independent living, assisted living and memory care community in the Jacksonville, Florida MSA. The asset was built in 2015. Ross Sanders,... Read More »
  • Idaho IL/AL Community Receives HUD Financing

    Berkadia secured $27.5 million in financing for a seniors housing community in Idaho. The asset comprises 191 independent living and assisted living units, and was 97% occupied at the time of closing. Bianca Andujo and Steve Muth closed the financing through HUD’s 232/223(f) program for a first-time Berkadia client based in Tennessee. The loan... Read More »
  • Welltower Releases Strong Results, Again

    Welltower announced its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 results, which reflected a strong year, as anticipated. Investors seemed to agree, with shares rising to an intraday high of 5.9% above the prior close the day following the release, before finishing up 3.5%.  In the fourth quarter, the REIT saw 400 basis points of average occupancy... Read More »
Buyers’ SNF opportunity

Buyers’ SNF opportunity

The recent trends of the 10-year Treasury Rate and the average skilled nursing facility cap rates have provided a lot of flexibility for buyers in how they price their acquisitions and negotiate with lenders. After rising from its low in 2012, the average 10-year rate was slowing increasing through 2014 and then dropped a bit in 2015 to a three-year low. But, for the past four years, the 10-year Treasury rate, which has long been thought of as “risk-free,” has averaged 2.5% or lower, or more than 200 basis points lower than during the last market peak of 2006 to 2007. What is interesting to follow is the spread between the 10-year rate and the average skilled nursing cap rate. Nearly 10... Read More »
Media Bias Against SNFs Again

Media Bias Against SNFs Again

The New York Times is at it again, and the reporters don’t want to do some simple math. Well, well, it looks like The New York Times is at it again. Two weeks ago it had a sensationalist story about residents “held” in nursing facilities. Last weekend, they continued on the theme of the disabled being confined in nursing facilities and ready to go home. The gist of the story was that home and community based care is what the elderly and disabled want (true), and that it is cheaper to boot (not so true). In fact, they cited Washington State as claiming that they can care for seven people at home for the cost of one person in a nursing facility. Really? The Washington Medicaid daily... Read More »
Age before location

Age before location

Highlighting a growing issue for the country’s aging skilled nursing facility inventory, a facility’s regional advantage may not matter much for owners of facilities in high barrier-to-entry markets looking to maximize value. Surprisingly, the Northeast region, because of its higher average income, property values and barriers to entry, saw the highest average cap rate of any region in 2015, at 13.3%. This is up 70 basis points from the average in 2014 of 12.6%, and up 90 basis points from 2013, when the region averaged the lowest cap rate in the country. Conversely, the North Central region, which has seen tremendous growth in skilled nursing development (buoyed by Mainstreet’s pipeline),... Read More »
Media Bias Against SNFs Again

Changes at HCP, Brookdale, Genesis

Earnings season brings more than just earnings to the surface for some companies. What can I say? It has been quite a week, and we are only at Wednesday. On Monday subscribers received my initial take on HCP’s announcement about spinning out its HCR ManorCare portfolio into a new REIT. Maybe management thought it was necessary, but I really think we are going to be hearing some negative news in the future, and if so, it will make HCP’s decision look better. Just look at the performance of Genesis Health in the first quarter, which sent its share price plummeting by 20% yesterday. One problem is that with the HCR portfolio representing more than 25% of HCP’s revenues, with it gone,... Read More »
The weight of the cap rate

The weight of the cap rate

In the last couple of years, we have started looking at cap rates based on the size of properties and portfolios acquired. In weighting cap rates by size, we avoid the issue of the cap rate for a 180-bed facility sale being weighted the same as the cap rate for a 60-bed facility sale. Some people believe that a weighted average cap rate is more reflective of a true cap rate average because the dollar value of the portfolios and larger facilities sold can dominate the overall market. But in the last 15 years (as long as we have been tracking it), there has largely been no significant difference between the weighted and un-weighted average cap rate, just that in peak value years, the... Read More »

Breaking barriers

If skilled nursing facilities sold on average at an all-time record high price of $85,900 per bed, then how did the average 2015 cap rate hold up to history? Well, according to the 21st Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, the average cap rate for skilled nursing transactions dropped 20 basis points to 12.2%, which is the second lowest average ever (12.1% was the lowest ever at the last market peak in 2007). Traditionally, the average skilled nursing cap rate has reliably ranged between 12.0% and 13.5% for most of the past 20 years, regardless of swings in interest rates and changes in financial markets. But with two consecutive years of sub-12.5% average cap rates (2014 was... Read More »