• Ensign Continues To Rock

    When quarterly earnings season hits, we have always been nervous about some company reporting unexpected bad news and maybe sending shock waves through the industry. The one exception is The Ensign Group, which rarely, if ever, has had a negative surprise. They did not disappoint us with their second quarter results. We have been waiting for... Read More »
  • Family Office Acquires Florida Seniors Housing Portfolio 

    Berkadia facilitated the sale of a four-property assisted living and memory care portfolio along Florida’s West Coast. Brooks Minford closed the transaction on behalf of two separate sellers. The buyer of all four properties, a Central Florida-based family office looking to expand its existing footprint, finalized the closings on July 23. The... Read More »
  • Forest Facilitates Florida SNF Acquisitions

    Forest Healthcare Properties handled two separate skilled nursing transactions in Florida. First, engaged by a regional owner/operator looking to exit the Tampa and Orlando MSAs, Forest helped facilitate the sale leaseback for a portfolio of seven SNFs. Built in 1980, the portfolio encompassed 866 beds with an occupancy rate above 90%. At the... Read More »
  • The Zett Group’s Summer Surge

    The Zett Group, a brokerage firm focused on the Pacific Northwest, has hit a rich vein of activity, closing four separate transactions in recent weeks. Blake Bozett handled the transactions, with even more deals to be announced soon. First, built in 2006, Streamside Assisted Living and Memory Care features 79 assisted living and memory care units... Read More »
  • StoryPoint Acquires in Michigan

    Alex Vice, Josh Jandris and Thomas Falkenberg of Walker & Dunlop facilitated the sale of two seniors housing communities in Oakland County, Michigan, which included Blossom Ridge (Rochester) and Blossom Village/Blossom Springs (Oakland Charter Township). In total, the communities encompass 245 units: Blossom Ridge features active adult,... Read More »
The Current Lending Environment for Senior Care Properties

The Current Lending Environment for Senior Care Properties

The financing process has killed dozens (and hundreds) of deals in the last couple of years, and yet M&A activity is near record levels in the seniors housing and care industry. So deals are getting done, and not just with cash. Who has been lending and at what cost to the borrower? What hurdles have to be overcome? And when capital costs do lower, how can owners and operators best prepare to finance the oncoming wave of deals and demographics? Read More »
Sonida Senior Living On The Move

Sonida Senior Living On The Move

It has taken a while, and a lot had to be done to strengthen the balance sheet over the past two years, but Sonida Senior Living is now on a path of growth, and recent announcements have shown it.  On May 9, the company closed on its first acquisition of the year with the purchase of a 100-unit assisted living and memory care community in Macedonia, Ohio. Built in 2015, the community has still not recovered from the challenges of the pandemic and changes in operators. The purchase price was $10.7 million, or $107,000 per unit, which seems quite cheap relative to what it would cost to replace, not to mention the original construction cost. They also bought it at a 43% discount to the... Read More »
Brookdale Making Progress, but Is It Enough?

Brookdale Making Progress, but Is It Enough?

Brookdale Senior Living reported its best EBITDA performance in several years, nearly topping $100 million, RevPOR continues to grow (5.8% sequentially), and second quarter guidance for adjusted EBITDA is now between $93 million and $98 million. On the labor front, they had a solid 70% retention rate for Executive Directors for the trailing 12-month period. But…the company continues to struggle on the occupancy front.  Second quarter weighted average occupancy was just 77.9%, down 50 basis points from the fourth quarter but up 160 basis points year over year. On a consolidated basis, weighted average occupancy in April, 77.9%, was a hair higher than in August of last year, and... Read More »
60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: REITs and PE Will Be Attacked Again

60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: REITs and PE Will Be Attacked Again

The Chapter 11 filing by Steward Health Care was not a surprise to anyone in the healthcare world. Its former PE owner, Cerberus Capital, will be attacked because they made a significant profit when they finally exited their 2010 investment 10 years later. No one wants to remember that they bought six failing hospitals in Massachusetts and rejuvenated them. Without that purchase, there was a good chance they would have been shuttered. Medical Properties Trust will be attacked because its leases ended up being too expensive, even though it helped Steward grow, took an equity interest in the company and provided new capital.  Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, and then COVID hit, and... Read More »
Here We Go Again With The Post

Here We Go Again With The Post

The Washington Post is on the attack again, publishing a story last Friday on the overuse of 911 calls when a resident falls in assisted living or independent living, and how some towns are starting to charge seniors housing communities a fee for each 911 visit of this sort. Apparently, in some towns these 911 “fall” calls have been rising. If we were living in a non-litigious world, perhaps the seniors housing communities would not feel as if they had to call. In some states, it is required if the resident can’t get up on their own. I used to live next door to a small independent living community that we called an unlicensed assisted living building because it had small units, mostly... Read More »
Brookdale Making Progress, but Is It Enough?

More Shareholder Activism

Fresh from its success in getting two people voted onto the Ventas Board of Directors, Land & Buildings is at it again, this time with National Health Investors. Like all the REITs, NHI’s managers and tenants had their share of problems during the pandemic. Who didn’t? Most of these issues are behind it, but the REIT could be in even stronger financial shape with just a few changes, which is what L&B wants to do. National Health Investors went public in 1991 and has had a long-term relationship with publicly traded National HealthCare Corporation (NHC), which leases several of its nursing homes from NHI. These 35 nursing facilities provide a solid foundation for NHI, and NHC has... Read More »