• 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 »
May’s M&A Meltdown

May’s M&A Meltdown

The M&A statistics are in for May, and it was a doozy. Only 19 seniors housing and skilled nursing deals were publicly announced during the month, nearly half of which coming from the first quarter earnings reports of several public companies. Without those, we would have barely made it to double digits. You have to go back to July 2017 for such a low monthly total, when 16 sales were disclosed. Back then, however, the month was followed by a strong August (27 deals) and September (35). We’re not as hopeful for such a comeback this time.  Another facet of May’s M&A activity was that nearly all of the deals were either closed in the first quarter or were all-but-completed... Read More »
Skilled Nursing Values Were Strong Before COVID-19

Skilled Nursing Values Were Strong Before COVID-19

Leading up to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, skilled nursing facilities were going through their own challenges of falling census and shortening lengths of stay, low Medicaid reimbursement, aging physical plants, a labor squeeze and the possibility of a CMS correction after the implementation of PDPM. What some wouldn’t give to go back to those kinds of problems. However, values were near an all-time high, averaging $93,000 per bed in 2019 according to the 25th Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, and falling slightly to an average of $92,800 per unit in the four quarters ended March 2020.   That high average was the result of investors acquiring... Read More »
Where Will Independent Living Values Go?

Where Will Independent Living Values Go?

Here’s the good news and the bad news regarding the independent living market today. The good news is that the fundamentals of the sector were stronger than ever as recent as this March, with values nearing a peak, occupancy consistently above 90% nationally, rents staying strong, and the labor problems largely avoiding IL communities. The bad news is that move-ins may be delayed for months, a recession may make selling and moving out of one’s home (and into an IL community) less feasible, and the socialization benefit of these communities may change significantly for some time.   Anecdotally, we do hear of move-ins continuing at a steady pace, depending on the locality and... Read More »
Where Were Assisted Living Values At Their Pre-Pandemic Peak?

Where Were Assisted Living Values At Their Pre-Pandemic Peak?

Seniors housing values were at (or very close to) a peak by the beginning of March. Then, COVID-19 shut down the country, and those communities were forced to shut their doors, halt move-ins, and deal with the pandemic and their residents as best they could. Keeping those seniors safe and healthy is, of course, the first priority. But the drop in occupancy and cash flow is also a serious matter (how else can these communities stay open to care for seniors if they are not profitable, after all?) and may lead to a correction in values.   Just how large of a correction, we cannot be sure, but we do know where values were right before the pandemic hit. According... Read More »
Where Will Independent Living Values Go?

Q1 M&A Activity Falls Below 100 Deals

For the first time since the first quarter of 2018, quarterly seniors housing and care deals dropped below 100 in Q1:2020, to 93 deals. Averaging 31 deals per month is not too shabby, but compared with the red-hot M&A market of 2019, when 450 deals were publicly announced and likely over 600 were actually completed, it is a significant decline. Not surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic had a large part to play in the slowdown, but not as much as you may think in the first quarter. After all, large swaths of the U.S. economy were not shut down until mid-March, and deals that closed after that were all-but-completed by the time businesses shut their doors. They just needed a little nudge... Read More »
Senior Care M&A Spending Hits Highest Level Since 2014

Senior Care M&A Spending Hits Highest Level Since 2014

Total dollar volume did not break any records in 2019, but it was still the third-highest annual total ever recorded, and the highest since 2014 according to our just-published Senior Care Acquisition Report, 25th Edition. And that was without a single deal in the top-16 prices seen in the sector (2006 and 2014 had two and four, respectively). In fact, there were only two transactions valued above $1 billion: Ventas’ $1.8 billion purchase of Le Group Maurice’s Canadian seniors housing portfolio and KKR’s $1.75 billion acquisition of the Benchmark Senior Living portfolio from Welltower.   However, the 2019 M&A market was larger and busier than people think, and that is... Read More »