• October Kicks Off with Multiple Financings

    VIUM Capital announced a slew of closings at the start of October, ranging from HUD refinances to acquisition loans. The largest was a $72 million bride loan that refinanced four skilled nursing facilities in Pennsylvania totaling 525 beds. Proceeds will be used to take out senior debt and senior mezzanine debt. The facility will be structured as... Read More »
  • Newmark Negotiates Several Large Financings

    Sarah Anderson of Newmark has closed some notable financing transactions in the last couple of months, in addition to arranging acquisition financing for numerous deals handled by the Newmark investment sales team. One of the closings was for Vivante at Turtle Creek, a to-be-built seniors housing community on the prestigious Turtle Creek... Read More »
  • Funding Arranged for Skilled Nursing Clients

    MONTICELLOAM, LLC, a specialized multifamily and seniors housing bridge lending platform, announced a couple of financings for skilled nursing clients in New England and North Carolina. First, for eight skilled nursing facilities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the firm closed a $70 million senior bridge loan with a 24-month initial term. It... Read More »
  • Newly Constructed Community Secures Financing

    BWE arranged refinancing for Clarendale Arcadia, a newly constructed senior living community in the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona. The financing was arranged on behalf of a repeat client joint venture between Harrison Street Asset Management, LCS, and Ryan Companies US, Inc., with LCS serving as the operator. Ryan Stoll, National... Read More »
  • Brookdale Shares Hit Seven-Year High

    Brookdale Senior Living has posted occupancy increases for several consecutive months. The operator has lagged behind the industry for a decade now, so it is about time.  Weighted average occupancy has increased each month since January, beginning at 79.2% and reaching 82.5% in September. The third quarter’s average of 81.8% is up 290 basis... Read More »
Brookdale Senior Living Occupancy Jumps in May

Brookdale Senior Living Occupancy Jumps in May

After struggling in the first quarter, which historically has been the industry norm, Brookdale Senior Living posted an increase of 40 basis points in weighted average occupancy in May (compared with up by 70 basis points in May 2022), and 50 basis points for month-end occupancy (compared with up by 90 basis points in month-end 2022). That is the good news. The bad news is that weighted average occupancy in May was still just 76.6%, the same as in January. So far, weighted average occupancy has increased by 50 basis points in the second quarter (two months). This compares with an increase of 100 basis points in the first two months of the second quarter of 2022, and 160 basis points for... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Increases Guidance

60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Increases Guidance

Welltower came out with a business update for June, and there was some good news on the financial front, particularly in regard to labor cost trends. First, the REIT was able to raise guidance for both its 2023 net income attributable to common stockholders and 2023 normalized FFO on the back of better-than-expected operating results in its SHOP portfolio and a bolstered balance sheet.  Operationally, the REIT reported that same-store RevPOR continued to grow at a faster rate than ExpPOR in the first quarter of this year, the fifth consecutive quarter of margin expansion. This was helped in part by agency labor expense as a percentage of total compensation dropping to 3.4% in the first... Read More »
Diversified Healthcare Trust – Not So Fast

Diversified Healthcare Trust – Not So Fast

It has been nearly two months since Diversified Healthcare Trust announced its merger with Office Properties Income Trust, two REITs basically controlled by external manager RMR Group. This was about the most self-serving transaction we have seen in a long time. But at least one DHC shareholder is not going to stand by. Flat Footed LLC, which with its affiliates owns about 7.4% of DHC’s shares, wants shareholders to vote against the deal, believing DHC should be (will be) worth between $9 and $10 per share if they let their SHOP portfolio continue to improve. The shares closed May 31 at $1.36 per share. That is a huge valuation differential, and it all seems to rest on DHC’s management’s... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: A Win For Providers

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: A Win For Providers

We all know that the Life Care Centers of America nursing home in Kirkland, Washington was the location of the first major SNF outbreak of COVID at the beginning of the pandemic. Well, the families of two residents who died sued the facility, the management company and some employees for negligence. As I have stated too many times, this early in the pandemic no one really knew what was going on, no one understood the severity, and no one knew what to do with the early cases, if they even had test kits, and to be held liable for deaths in those early weeks did not seem to make sense.  While the jury found that the company was not at fault for the deaths of the two women, the jury found... Read More »
60 Seconds with Swett: Welltower Increases Guidance

60 Seconds with Swett: The Keys to Retirement Success

Last week, a partnership between Age Wave and Edward Jones conducted a survey with The Harris Poll, getting more than 12,000 respondents, the majority of which were retirees and pre-retirees, to answer questions on the keys to success in retirement. With Edward Jones as one of the initiators of the survey, being a major financial advisory firm, you could bet that one of the main takeaways was going to be the importance of financial preparedness for retirees. Indeed, the report revealed that six in 10 Americans who plan to retire believe they can afford a comfortable and secure retirement lasting more than 10 years. To that we would just say what about the other 40%, a significant portion... Read More »
ServingIntel Serves Up New AI Platform

ServingIntel Serves Up New AI Platform

AI is on the minds of many these days, and its seemingly limitless capabilities in the not-too-far future are creating both hope and angst among the public. Certainly, in health care, the possibilities of making care better, more efficient and more effective are an exciting prospect. And we are still in the early days of it.  One company, ServingIntel, is launching a new AI platform designed specifically for senior living communities. Already serving communities across the country and in Canada with point-of-sale and robotics technology that helps provide higher resident satisfaction, increased revenue and enhanced staff productivity, ServingIntel has now created Ruby AI. With... Read More »