Brookdale Senior Living Census Jumps
The census problems at Brookdale Senior Living definitely bottomed out late in the winter of this year. Weighted average occupancy in both February and March was 69.4%, a level at which it is tough to make money. But that has increased by 180 basis points in June to 71.2%, still a low number but moving in the right direction. And it has increased for three straight months at a time when historically the industry sees little occupancy gains. Occupancy levels at the end of each month have done even better. These bottomed out in February at 70.1% and increased for four straight months, ended June at 72.6% for a 250-basis point increase in four months. Again, this is a time... Read More »
Second Quarter Occupancy Results
NIC MAP just released its second-quarter occupancy trends results, and unfortunately, it was not what the industry had hoped for. For the overall seniors housing industry, average occupancy remained flat at 78.7% from the first quarter to the second quarter. Given the reports of bottoming out by March for several of the large operators and the REITs with large operating portfolios, and strong census increases in April and May, we were a bit surprised that the quarter-to-quarter change was stagnant. We figured maybe at least a 50-basis point increase or higher. The one thing this tells us is that the early spring momentum did not carry over into June. Or possibly it was the... Read More »
M&A in May Falls Flat
Despite the positive occupancy news coming out of seemingly every earnings announcement in May, buyers held back this month, announcing just 26 transactions. To be fair, that total beat’s February’s 25 publicly announced transactions (albeit being a 28-day month), and tied January. But it was off of March’s 29-deal tally and April, when a “whopping” 32 deals were announced. We know that plenty of both buyers and sellers are waiting for a three- to six-month period of sustained occupancy and NOI growth before either risking the purchase or getting the desired price. But with a surge of deals closed at the end of April, we also thought a certain barrier had been broken and... Read More »
CCRCs Still Leading In Occupancy
Ziegler just came out with its quarterly analysis of occupancy trends for CCRC (LPCs) in conjunction with the NIC MAP data, and while census is still slipping, the sub-sector has fared better than the other components of the senior living spectrum. The data set used includes 1,134 CCRCs in both primary and secondary markets, as defined by NIC MAP. It is not clear how the other 800 or so CCRCs have performed. All CCRCs posted an average occupancy rate of 84.3% in the first quarter 2021, a drop of 720 basis points from the first quarter of 2020. While somewhat shocking, that performance is better than assisted living and skilled nursing. And, starting from an average... Read More »