• 60 Seconds with Swett: The Problem with CMS Interpretive Guidelines

    Just a day after we highlighted the potential downsides of overregulation of assisted living from the federal level, a case of regulatory overreach involving a nursing home just headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District in hopes of overturning a $1.8 million civil monetary penalty. Without getting into the minutiae too much, the... Read More »
  • Kayne Anderson Fund Tops Target

    The familiar refrain continues, with more capital continuing to flow into the seniors housing industry, property prices should keep rising. Kayne Anderson Real Estate, the real estate private equity arm of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P., has closed the largest opportunistic equity fund in its history, at more than 70% above its initial... Read More »
  • Well-Performing Full-Continuum Community Sells

    Blueprint announced its role in the sale of Morningstar at Golden Ridge, a seniors housing community in Peoria, Arizona (Phoenix MSA). Built in 2019, the community has 38 independent living, 65 assisted living and 35 memory care units. It is nearly fully occupied. The community is one of the newest and most well-appointed assets within a... Read More »
  • Kaplan Development Divests to Cedarwood Group

    Cedarwood Group closed its acquisition of Saranac Village at Will Rogers, a 75-unit independent living community in Saranac Lake, New York. The seller was Kaplan Development Group, which took over Will Rogers after the first year of it being open as a senior living community. The community was originally built in 1928 as a Tudor-style... Read More »
  • Omega Welcomes New CEO and CFO

    Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc.’s President, Matthew Gourmand will become the REIT’s Chief Executive Officer in conjunction with the planned retirement of Taylor Pickett, effective October 1, 2026. Pickett will also step down from the Board of Directors upon his retirement, and the Board of Directors intends to appoint Gourmand to the Board,... Read More »
How Did Buyers Value Cash Flow in Seniors Housing M&A in 2018?

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?

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

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

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 »
The ABCs of the Independent Living Market

The ABCs of the Independent Living Market

For some years now, we have separated out the assisted living and independent living M&A markets into a couple of quality-based categories, classified as “A,” “B,” and “C” properties. The determination is made by the property’s age, location and size, and there are always going to be some properties that can fit into either category. But they should balance out in the end. Some owners of “A” properties do not believe it is an apples-to-apples comparison between the quality of their communities and “B” and “C” communities in general, and probably vice versa. That is because the rates that “A” communities can charge and the margins they can operate at often exceed those of “B” and “C”... Read More »
Does Size Matter in Seniors Housing?

Does Size Matter in Seniors Housing?

Last week, we took a look at the relationship between the size of the skilled nursing facility and the price it sold at, according to statistics from our just-published Skilled Nursing Acquisition & Investment Report. And like skilled nursing facilities, the larger the seniors housing property, the higher price paid for it, generally. That is because larger institutional properties can take advantage of scale to boost cash flow and thus its value. In addition, the majority IL communities tend to be large and IL has commanded high prices in most years. There are indeed smaller “boutique” memory care communities that can command a high per-unit price because of the rents they can charge... Read More »