• Brookdale’s Uneven Recovery

    Brookdale Senior Living has been going through some major changes in the last year, so naturally its recovery could be a little uneven, with the hope of more long-term growth and stability. They have a new CEO, COO and a new operational structure, in addition to exiting more than 100 communities in the last year. But the mixed bag of results can... Read More »
  • Two Public REITs Continue Their SHOP Push

    Two public REITs honing in on the seniors housing sphere have announced their first quarter earnings results. LTC Properties reiterated its commitment to seniors housing again, and Janus Living, Healthpeak Properties’ spin-off REIT that debuted in the public markets in March, is already showing momentum. First, after completing seniors housing... Read More »
  • Tennessee Assisted Living Community Sells

    Andrew Montgomery of Montgomery Intermediary Group recently sold an assisted living community in eastern Tennessee. Built in the late 1990s, the building featured more than 40 units, plus some houses on its campus. There was some additional acreage, as well. It was sold by one out-of-state owner to another, but the buyer has another assisted... Read More »
  • SNF Portfolio Trades Following Strong Bidding Environment

    A regional operator looking to recycle capital divested a portfolio of four skilled nursing facilities in Florida. There were a total of 460 functional beds, and they were spread across Rockledge, Naples, Venice and Sarasota. Evans Senior Investments handled the deal.  The portfolio generated approximately $46 million in total annualized... Read More »
  • Class-A Seniors Housing Community Receives Agency Financing

    BWE closed $77 million in fixed-rate, Fannie Mae financing for a Class-A seniors housing community in a major Midwest MSA. The 10-year loan features a full term of interest-only payments. Ryan Stoll and Taylor Mokris led the financing. The community offers a full continuum of care, including independent living, assisted living and memory care.... 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 »
Brookdale Reports and Provides Guidance

Brookdale Reports and Provides Guidance

Not since the pandemic hit has Brookdale Senior Living provided guidance on adjusted EBITDA and RevPAR growth. It is something that has been missing for investors and analysts, but Brookdale was not alone in suspending guidance. It just became too difficult for anyone in the senior care business to predict with any amount of certainty what the next quarter or year would bring. Full year adjusted EBITDA is projected to be between $240 million and $260 million, while RevPAR is expected to grow by 10% to 12% in 2022. Adjusted EBITDA in 2021 was $138.5 million, but $283.6 million in 2020. The good news is that this means management has more confidence with where their operations are going. We... Read More »
LPCs/CCRCs Do It Again

LPCs/CCRCs Do It Again

According to a new report from investment banking firm Ziegler, based on information provided by NIC, the LPC/CCRC market is on the rebound. Not that it had too far to rebound from, however. Not-for-profit and entrance-fee LPCs/CCRCs (we will refer to them all as CCRCs) had average occupancy between 90% and 92% in the 99 primary and secondary markets for the 10 years prior to the pandemic. Rental CCRCs were not too far behind but started to diverge (trend lower) between 2014 and 2015, according to the data. With the onset of the pandemic, all forms of CCRCs, whether not-for-profit, for-profit, rental or entrance fee, saw similar drops in census that were seen across the industry and all... Read More »
NHI Reports Drop in December Occupancy

NHI Reports Drop in December Occupancy

National Health Investors released another business update, and the news was not great. The REIT’s occupancy growth had started to slow in the fall of 2021, but its latest December averages showed declines across its three major operators when compared with November’s average. Senior Living Communities dropped by 10 basis points across the nine properties it operates for NHI from 81.9% in November to 81.8% in December. Bickford Senior Living’s 42 properties, the largest of the portfolios, saw a 90-basis point decline from 81.8% to 80.9%. Then, the 17 properties operated by Holiday Retirement fell by 190 basis points from 79.1% to 77.2% month over month, the lowest monthly average since... Read More »
Welltower Updates Census Progress

Welltower Updates Census Progress

Welltower has the largest owned portfolio of seniors housing communities among the healthcare REITs (SHOP) and census has been steadily rising since the bottom early last year. But the rate of growth, like many others, has been slowing. Average U.S. occupancy growth was 30 basis points in October, 50 basis points in November and zero in December. Spot occupancy for the U.S. portfolio ended December at 77.8%, or 90 basis points above September 30. That’s not too bad for a fourth quarter, but December was disappointing and most likely reflected the holiday season as well as the spreading Omicron variant. Up until December they had had nine consecutive months of increased occupancy. The good... Read More »

Ventas Provides Census Update

Ventas has the second largest SHOP portfolio among the healthcare REITs, so it is always a decent barometer for what is actually happening in the seniors housing market. The REIT’s portfolio has performed exceptionally well since the bottom of the market in mid-March 2021, as have most of the providers across the country. The easing of restrictions as well as the vaccine combined for a robust turnaround that we all knew would come at some point. However, we all knew (well, some of us) that the unprecedented net gains in the second and third quarters last year were not sustainable, as much as we would have liked them to be. Call it the pent-up demand or anything else, with portfolios... Read More »