• Ventas Posts Strong 2025 Results and Continues SHOP Momentum

    One of the big REITs, Ventas, reported its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 results, and its activity was impressive, with the company continuing to outperform many of its peers. A full comparison will have to wait for Welltower’s earnings release, but Ventas nonetheless posted a strong year.  In the fourth quarter, Ventas’ U.S. portfolio... Read More »
  • Ensign Delivers Strong Q4 and Full-Year 2025 Results

    The Ensign Group posted a strong fourth quarter and full-year 2025. The company reported that FFO was $75.2 million for 2025, an increase of 28.3% over 2024, and $20.4 million for the quarter, an increase of 33.9% over the prior year quarter. Same facilities and transitioning facilities occupancy for the year were 82.9% and 84.2%, increases of... Read More »
  • Omega Reports Continued Momentum

    Omega Healthcare Investors announced its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 results, completing approximately $334 million in fourth quarter investments, which consisted of $52 million in real estate acquisitions, $16 million in real estate loans and $266 million in unconsolidated entities. In 2025 Omega completed $1.1 billion in new investments,... Read More »
  • Senior Lifestyle Recapitalizes Two Communities

    Senior Lifestyle participated with its capital partners in the recapitalization of North Shore Place in Northbrook, Illinois, and The Sheridan at Eastside in Snellville, Georgia. Both communities were developed by Senior Lifestyle and will continue to be operated by the company following the transaction. North Shore Place is a 188-unit assisted... Read More »
  • Berkadia Announces 2025 Activity and Latest Deal

    Berkadia recorded another successful year, with more than $2 billion in mortgage banking closings for the second consecutive year. In 2025, Berkadia’s financings were spread across 123 properties including active adult, independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing communities. Multiple lending sources were utilized, such... Read More »
Occupancy On the Rebound 

Occupancy On the Rebound 

In the top 31 markets in the U.S., seniors housing occupancy has posted its third consecutive quarterly increase, according to NIC MAP data. Combining assisted and independent living, the first quarter of 2022 posted a 20-basis point increase from the previous quarter to 80.6%, and up 250 basis points from the first quarter of 2021. While smaller than we would like to see, we will take it. The pandemic low was 78.0% in the second quarter of 2021, according to the data.  Assisted living posted the largest increase in census among the three major categories, increasing by 50 basis points from the fourth quarter to 77.9%. This is up 370 basis points from the pandemic low of 74.2% in Q2... Read More »

Activists Strike Again, But Fall On Deaf Ears

You have to hand it to Jonathan Litt of Land & Buildings, he has not given up on the senior care sector. After going after a few provider companies in the pre-COVID past, he recently set his sights on Ventas. But, Big Deb did not quake in her heels. She never does. As is his way, Litt tried to get a position on the Ventas Board, and after meeting with two separate groups of directors, he apparently thought that he made a good impression and had swayed them. Wrong. Right after his March 7 letter to Ventas shareholders, Ventas announced the appointment of a new board member, but his name was not Litt. Extremely qualified, yes, but not Litt. In Litt’s letter, he indicated his “tremendous... Read More »

A Conversation on the Bridge Lending Market with Oxford Finance

The industry is emerging from the pandemic, but new issues are always arising, so how are lenders reacting and how do they distinguish pandemic problems from provider problems? Ben Swett sat down with Kevin Harbour and Tracy Maziek of Oxford Finance to discuss the state of the bridge lending market in a rising interest rate environment. Read More »

Brookdale Provides Update

Brookdale Senior Living just released its occupancy update for February, and our first take was that things need to be better than that. Then, we remembered our late 2020 analysis which showed that assisted living occupancy has never increased in the first quarter for each of the past 10 years. Therefore, we should not expect too much this quarter. In this light, Brookdale’s census outlook is not too bad. From January to February, the weighted average occupancy dropped just 10 basis points to 73.3%. Even better, the month-end occupancy increased by 20 basis points from the end of January to 74.4%. The problem is that census at the end of September was 74.2%, so we have seen little overall... Read More »
Welltower: Riding Out The Storm

Welltower: Riding Out The Storm

There were no surprises in Welltower’s fourth quarter and full-year 2021 earnings report, which we suppose is a good thing. Could the seniors housing portfolio be performing better? Yes, but so could everyone else’s portfolio. The U.S. seniors housing owned portfolio (SHOP) has seen a slowdown in census increase, with no change in December, which followed a 50-bp rise in November and 30-bp increase in October. That results in 80 basis points of census increase in three months, compared with 260 bp in the third quarter previous and 280 bps in the second quarter. While there is some seasonality in that fourth quarter number, we also may have seen the end of the “post-lockdown” boost, or the... Read More »