• Sabra’s Q4 Deals Push 2025 New Investments to $450 Million

    Sabra Health Care REIT released its fourth quarter results. On a year-over-year basis, same-store cash NOI increased 12.6% for the fourth quarter of 2025, while the 2025 quarterly year-over-year average increase was 15.0%, inclusive of the stabilized facilities formerly operated by Holiday Retirement.  Its Q4 acquisitions brought the... Read More »
  • CareTrust Closes 2025 with 169 New Property Investments

    CareTrust REIT came out with its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 earnings and is continuing on its growth trajectory. In Q4, the REIT added 19 properties to its portfolio, comprising 14 triple-net leased skilled nursing facilities, two triple-net leased seniors housing communities and three SHOP communities, all totaling $561.5 million in... Read More »
  • Separate Sellers Divest in Florida

    Berkadia announced two seniors housing closings, both involving communities in the Sunshine State. First, Berkadia represented a Maryland-based private equity investment firm in its divestment of a 130-unit independent living, assisted living and memory care community in the Jacksonville, Florida MSA. The asset was built in 2015. Ross Sanders,... Read More »
  • Idaho IL/AL Community Receives HUD Financing

    Berkadia secured $27.5 million in financing for a seniors housing community in Idaho. The asset comprises 191 independent living and assisted living units, and was 97% occupied at the time of closing. Bianca Andujo and Steve Muth closed the financing through HUD’s 232/223(f) program for a first-time Berkadia client based in Tennessee. The loan... Read More »
  • Welltower Releases Strong Results, Again

    Welltower announced its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 results, which reflected a strong year, as anticipated. Investors seemed to agree, with shares rising to an intraday high of 5.9% above the prior close the day following the release, before finishing up 3.5%.  In the fourth quarter, the REIT saw 400 basis points of average occupancy... Read More »
Sabra and Care Capital Properties Merger Is Passed

Sabra and Care Capital Properties Merger Is Passed

After some dissidents tried to torpedo the deal, shareholders decided bigger was better. Well, the vote is in, and it looks like the merger of Sabra Health Care REIT and Care Capital Properties will go through as planned. It wasn’t easy, and Sabra’s CEO Rick Matros had to deal with two dissident shareholders who controlled only about 8% of the shares between them. They came into the stock late in the game and had no intention of staying around for long. But they caused enough of a ruckus to have shareholder advisory service firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, recommend a no vote against the merger. Let’s just say, we suspect ISS knows little about the skilled nursing business, and... Read More »
LTC Properties Deals With A Problem

LTC Properties Deals With A Problem

By now, most everyone has heard of the problems LTC Properties has had with one of its tenants, Anthem Memory Care. The REIT has a master lease covering 11 Anthem memory care properties located in California, Illinois, Colorado and Kansas. Stand-alone memory care communities, at least those developed recently, have come under some fire as not the right way to go. LTC, for one, has decided to take a breather from financing stand-alone MC until the market stabilizes from all the new development. In Colorado and Illinois, that is the right thing to do. What many people are missing, however, is how calmly LTC is going about the problem. Sure, they issued a notice of default, which was... Read More »
Genesis Healthcare Pulls Guidance

Genesis Healthcare Pulls Guidance

A lot of people have been nervous about the skilled nursing sector recently, given the deteriorating finances at HCR ManorCare and other companies. However, that has not seemed to impact acquisition prices in the market, at least for the better facilities and facilities in general in attractive markets. Genesis Healthcare is another company that has had a tough time negotiating through the Medicare Advantage reimbursement changes and declining industry occupancy in general. The company’s earnings announcement from earlier this week came without a typical “pre-notice” of the release date, and the conference call with analysts was a rather early 8:30 am ET, which may have also caught some... Read More »
Sabra and Care Capital Properties Merger Is Passed

Missing Out On Bad News

A vacation is a horrible thing when bad news hits the market. It is a horrible thing to go on vacation when all sorts of things are happening in the market, but such was the case last week. What I missed was the roll-out of earnings and the very disappointing occupancy numbers. For some, they were worse than the weak results posted for the second quarter by NIC. The ubiquitous villain was the tail of last winter’s flu season. But it seems the seniors housing sector is surviving on a two steps backward, one step forward cycle, and not making up much ground. What still amazes me is that the warning signs were there in abundance well over a year ago, yet too many people ignored them. Leading... Read More »
The Hyper Focus On Occupancy

The Hyper Focus On Occupancy

Why do investors, lenders and analysts focus so much on occupancy in seniors housing? Operating margin became much less important over the years compared with the absolute level of cash flow earned. This makes sense since a property’s value is derived from the cash flow, not the margin, and increased value from increased cash flow, not a better margin. The one caveat is that as the operating margin increases, the absolute level of cash flow should also increase, but not always. Getting back to occupancy, we follow it closely because trends in occupancy can tell us so much about a company and the markets where it operates. In today’s environment, everyone seems to be blaming consistently... Read More »

Rehabilitation & Physical Therapy: M&A in the Changing Post-Acute Landscape

The rehabilitation and physical therapy M&A market has so far flown under the radar, even though the apparent need will only grow. Publicly traded companies are buying up inpatient rehab facilities, and private equity firms are building physical therapy platforms in major metro areas. But, the market is still very fragmented, which offers opportunities to investors. For those interested in this market, we will be hosting a webinar called “Rehabilitation & Physical Therapy: M&A in the Changing Post-Acute Landscape” at 1PM on August 17th. Our editor, Lisa Phillips, and panelists Luis de la Prida of Spectrum Healthcare Consulting, Jay Shiland of MTS Partners, Lou Ann Soika of... Read More »