Another Valuation Metric for the 2018 Seniors Housing M&A Market
In a year when both the assisted living and independent living average cap rates rose, how did the sectors’ average Gross Income Multiples (GIM) change year over year? Well, they accordingly fell off their 2017 levels, mirroring their changes in cap rate, according to The Seniors Housing Acquisition & Investment Report. The average independent living GIM fell to its lowest point in five years at 5.0x, while the assisted living GIM dropped 70 basis points to 3.2x, also a five-year low. The difference between the sectors can be explained by the higher risk of owning assisted living communities. The IL market, on the other hand, has seen far less new construction and more stable occupancy... Read More »
How Did Buyers Value Cash Flow in Seniors Housing M&A in 2018?
For the seventh year in a row, there was a perfect correlation between the age of seniors housing communities sold and their average net operating income per unit, according to the Seniors Housing Acquisition & Investment Report. This makes sense, given that the newer communities should better reflect the current demand (by unit size, amenities, etc.) and require less capex to maintain their competitiveness. Newer communities also have an easier time attracting good staff and charging higher rents. Those newest communities (built after 2013) had an average of $19,700 per unit of NOI, relatively consistent with recent levels. The next subset of properties built between five and 10 years... Read More »
What About the CCRC M&A Market?
The CCRC (or LPC) acquisition market, which we highlighted in the First Edition of The Seniors Housing Acquisition & Investment Report, is the thinnest of all the major sectors of seniors housing and care. The number of potential buyers is smaller, the lender and investor pool is smaller, and the number communities for sale each year is smaller. Because the market is not very active, we have grouped our statistics in two-year intervals (with the exception of the three-year period before the Great Recession) to minimize the impact of outlier sales at both extremes. Anecdotally, we have heard that the CCRC market is possibly faring the strongest of the seniors housing sectors. There has... Read More »
How Occupancy Impacted 2018 Assisted Living Values
As we’ve mentioned several times, 2018 was a tough year for assisted living occupancy, as new development took its toll on a number of markets. Low occupancy often leads to lower operating margins and less cash flow, especially when operators feel the need to heavily discount their rates in order to fill beds, so it’s a serious issue for the industry. In our Seniors Housing Acquisition & Investment Report, “stabilized” means having an occupancy equal to or higher than 85%. And while there are some operators not pleased with their “stabilized” communities occupied in the 80s, it could be worse, and there was clearly a premium paid for existing census in 2018. Stabilized communities sold... Read More »
Older, Struggling SNFs Had More Weight In 2018 Market
We have historically presented our cap rate analysis on an unweighted average basis, weighting the cap rate for a 60-bed skilled nursing facility and a portfolio of 20 facilities the same in our Skilled Nursing Acquisition & Investment Report (which you can still order here). Many buyers believe that a portfolio should command a lower cap rate than a single-asset sale, but that often depends on the quality of the portfolio and whether there are any stinkers in the portfolio. A weighted average cap rate thus removes this bias. What this has shown is that over time since we started separating out these two averages is that there has been very little difference between the two cap rate... Read More »Schedule a demo
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