• Regional Owner/Operator Enters New State

    A regional owner/operator looking to enter the state of Indiana acquired Smith Farms Manor, an independent living community in Auburn, about 30 miles south of the Michigan border. Built in 1998, the community features 51 units and is well maintained. It sits on an attractive four-acre campus down the street from Parkview DeKalb Hospital and off... Read More »
  • Skilled Nursing Portfolio Gets New Operator

    Evans Senior Investments secured a new lease for a skilled nursing portfolio in Tennessee on behalf of an institutional owner. The portfolio features four assets and was operating below 70% occupancy with margins under 10%. Despite that performance, ESI secured a lease $3 million above in-place cash flow, reflecting the operational upside that... Read More »
  • Seniors Housing and Care M&A Remains Elevated in Q1:26

    The number of publicly announced seniors housing and care acquisitions in the first quarter of 2026 reached 231 deals, based on new acquisition data from LevinPro LTC. This represents a 19.8% decrease from the 288 transactions disclosed in the fourth quarter of 2025, but a 25.5% increase from the 184 deals in Q1:25.   “It was always going... Read More »
  • Clarion Acquires Again in Colorado

    Two years after opening a 160-unit seniors housing community in Centennial, Colorado (Denver MSA), MorningStar Senior Living announced an expanding relationship with Clarion Partners, a leading real estate investment company and specialty investment manager of Franklin Templeton, in its acquisition of MorningStar at Holly Park. The community... Read More »
  • Brookdale’s Summer Test Ahead

    Brookdale Senior Living reported its March occupancy results, and it unfortunately took another step in the wrong direction. We will get a better read when peers report first-quarter results and when NIC MAP releases its next tranche of occupancy data, but at this point, it seems as though Brookdale will need a particularly strong performance... Read More »

Sonida Senior Living Announces Earnings

We are truly glad to see that Sonida Senior Living (formerly Capital Senior Living) is seeing improvements in census, contract labor use, rates and revenues. We are sure outgoing CEO Kim Lody wanted to leave with some upbeat news. Census (84% at quarter end) is now just 50 basis points below the pre-pandemic level. But as we have repeatedly said, pre-pandemic was not so good for the industry. We really have to look at three to four years before the pandemic as a goal. Several quarters ago we found a “typo” in the quarterly earnings release, which made the financial performance look better. After our reporting, they then issued a corrected release. In this second quarter 2022 earnings... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Do We Really Have To Worry About A Recession?

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: Do We Really Have To Worry About A Recession?

We just can’t seem to get a break. Just as we are coming out of the pandemic morass with some decent census increases since March of 2021, now we have to worry about a looming recession and stagflation.  Many people in the sector have only seen a growing economy in the past decade and inflation rates hovering between zero and 2%. Stagnation? Never heard of it, well, not for a few decades at least.  As a result, we thought we would take a look at what happened to the senior care sector in the last major recession in 2008-2009, as well as the mini-recession in 2020, and see what exactly happened in our sector and what might happen this time around.  What we concluded is that... Read More »
When Small Is Better

When Small Is Better

It is difficult to be nimble when you are large, and with so many headwinds, let’s take a look at Bloom Senior Living, a small operator in the Midwest and Southeast, and how it is faring. At the height of the pandemic, as in March 2021, when everyone was suffering from their lowest occupancy levels, Bloom was no exception when it dipped to 66.7%. The difference is in what happened in the next 15 months. By August 2021, census had increased by 830 basis points at its five communities and jumped another 500 basis points by the end of the year. As of May 1, 2022, census stood at 85%, a more than 1800-basis point increase since the bottom of the market. We have not seen that kind of... Read More »
Sonida Reports Healthy Occupancy Bump in Q1 

Sonida Reports Healthy Occupancy Bump in Q1 

Sonida Senior Living (formerly Capital Senior Living) came out with its first quarter earnings, just a month after it provided its delayed fourth quarter results. At that time, Sonida had reported some progress after it raised $154.8 million through a major recapitalization in late 2021, including reporting sequential occupancy growth from 82.0% in January to 82.2% in February and 82.6% in March. That equated to a 60-basis point increase for a quarter that always declines.  Now, looking at the weighted average occupancy for its same-store portfolio, the first quarter of 2022 came in at 82.3%, which represents a 100-basis point increase from the previous quarter and is 680 basis points... Read More »
Welltower Posts Good Quarter

Welltower Posts Good Quarter

Everyone tries to put a good face on their performance, whether it has been average or well above average. But Shankh Mitra, CEO of Welltower, was practically exuberant on the REIT’s recent performance and its future growth and prospects. It certainly helped that same-community NOI in its SHOP portfolio grew by 18.4% year over year. Half of that growth came in the second quarter 2021, but the other half (9.7%) came in the first quarter this year. Increasing census and the ability to now charge higher rates really drove the increases.   Welltower’s seniors housing operated portfolio (SHOP) census beat the first quarter blues as many others have, with the U.S. portfolio posting a... Read More »
When Small Is Better

Ventas SHOP Poised for Growth

Ventas is one of the largest owners of seniors housing communities, so it is a REIT always worthwhile to watch. It owns 544 communities with 61,794 units in its SHOP portfolio, plus another 267 communities with 20,149 units that it owns and leases to operators.   We usually focus on the larger SHOP portfolio, mostly because there is much more detailed information on it. And this portfolio includes both the 463 U.S. communities and the 81 in Canada. This is important because the Canadian portfolio has a much higher average occupancy rate, 93.2% compared with 77.6% in the U.S., even though the U.S. is seeing more significant improvements. But how do you really improve on 93.2%? The... Read More »