• Grace Management Adds Five Ventas Communities

    Grace Management expanded its relationship with Ventas, adding five seniors housing communities owned by the REIT to its operating portfolio. The communities were previously managed under a triple-net lease structure. They include Brookdale Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois, Brookdale Northbrook in Northbrook, Illinois, Brookdale Springs Mesa... Read More »
  • Seller Boosts Census Ahead of Sale to JV

    Senwell Senior Investment Advisors sold Rose Hill Retirement Community, a 66-unit, 87-bed assisted living community in Marion, North Carolina. Originally built as a hospital, Rose Hill has been transformed by the seller over the past two decades into a senior care community. After a previous attempt to sell the community was unsuccessful,... Read More »
  • Joint Venture Buys Orange County Community

    A high-end seniors housing community in Orange County sold with the help of CBRE National Senior Housing. Aron Will and John Sweeny represented the joint venture seller in the deal, while Will and Matthew Kuronen arranged acquisition financing from a national bank. The loan came with a four-year term, a full term of interest only and a floating... Read More »
  • Developer Secures Construction Financing

    JLL Capital Markets arranged a $47 million construction financing for The Arbella at Blue Hills, a 164-unit, active adult community to be developed in Bloomfield, Connecticut. JLL worked on behalf of the developer, The United Group of Companies, Inc. (United Group) to secure the construction loan through Liberty Bank of Middletown, Connecticut.... Read More »
  • Midwest-Based Operator Refinances AL/MC Communities

    MONTICELLOAM, LLC, along with firm affiliates, provided a $28.5 million senior bridge financing for two Midwest seniors housing communities. The financing was originated by Karina Davydov, Senior Managing Director, Originations. The sponsor, a Midwest-based operator with a portfolio of over 40 seniors housing and healthcare properties and a... Read More »
Brookdale vs Capital Senior Living

Brookdale vs Capital Senior Living

Not that there is a competition, but since the end of 2020, Capital Senior Living has outperformed Brookdale Senior Living with a price gain of 345% compared with 93% for Brookdale. It helped that Capital Senior was starting from a very low point. But for both companies that is pretty good, and both beat the overall market.   They have both benefitted from the vaccine impact, with increases in leads, tours, move-ins and census. For each of the last three months, Brookdale has posted a 50-basis point increase in month-end occupancy, which is great, but will it be enough?  Investors think they are on the right track, and have pushed the share price up by more than 25% in the... Read More »
Brookdale vs Capital Senior Living

More Good News from Welltower and Ventas

Census is on the rise at the SHOP portfolios of the biggest healthcare REITs. After more than a year of mostly depressing news, it is nice to see that more good news keeps on coming. With a year of canceled earnings forecasts by most public companies and REITs, Welltower announced that it raised the low end of its second quarter earnings per share estimate by nearly 10%, and its normalized FFO by just over 4%. Now that’s some good news! In addition, they had forecast a 130-basis point increase in their SHOP portfolio for the full second quarter, and by June 4th they had already reached 120 basis points. Spot occupancy is now 150 basis points higher than the pandemic low. Ventas is also... Read More »
NORC Releases New Study On COVID Mortality

NORC Releases New Study On COVID Mortality

Just after we had wrapped up one of our lead stories in the June issue of The SeniorCare Investor on the nursing home comeback and some COVID myths, NORC at the University of Chicago released its analysis about mortality rates in five states across the senior care spectrum. With funding from NIC, they looked at five states – Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania – and 3,817 seniors housing properties in 113 counties in those states.   Perhaps the key finding, at least for the independent living and CCRC providers (and their residents) was that 67% of the IL communities never experienced a COVID-related death. Better yet, the COVID mortality rate... Read More »
Brookdale vs Capital Senior Living

What A Feeling!

One big benefit of the country opening up is in-person conferences. It does feel good. Last week, I attended my first conference, in person, since March of 2020. And boy did it feel great! Shaking hands again, hugging people I haven’t seen in person in 15 months, or more, was like a celebration for everyone there. All because we were vaccinated. Thank you, Senior Living 100. I was invited to moderate a panel on, what else, the M&A market. Two weeks earlier, I was a panelist at their sister conference, The LTC 100, but I was virtual, as was one other panelist in my session, and it just was not the same. My two takeaways were that people are pretty optimistic about the comeback for... Read More »
Brookdale vs Capital Senior Living

The 55+ Market Builds Momentum

Coming out of the pandemic, investors are enamored with the 55+ or active adult market, but we will see if that enthusiasm turns into overexuberance. Perhaps the brightest star in seniors housing coming out of the pandemic has been the active adult market, and investors took notice. Census stayed strong relative to the other sectors, and owners tout their lower average move-in age, more approachable rents for residents, lower labor costs and higher operating margins. As a percentage of seniors housing deals announced, according to our deal database, active adult has grown its share from a paltry 2% in 2019 to 6.4% in 2020 and 8.2% so far in 2021. Plenty of firms have also announced... Read More »
Brookdale vs Capital Senior Living

Is Connecticut The Future For Wage Hikes?

In order to avert a strike by unionized nursing home workers, a deal is being struck with the state that will send hourly rates soaring. In order to avoid a union strike at dozens of Connecticut nursing facilities, the Governor stepped in to help the two sides reach a deal. And what a deal for employees. Most hourly workers will have a pay raise set at a minimum of $20 per hour. CNAs will be increased from a $12 to $15 range to $20 per hour, while LPNs will have a minimum of $30 per hour. There are also increases in pension contributions and health and wellness programs. Most of the money will come from the state, with an extra $47.3 million in 2021 and $121.1 million in 2022, all going... Read More »