• The Saga of Genesis HealthCare Continues

    Genesis HealthCare was once one of the largest and most successful skilled nursing companies. But it grew too quickly, made some bad investments over the years (did we mention the billion-dollar merger with The MultiCare Companies?), and it always played the leverage game, whether with leases or debt, and usually both. Last summer, it filed for... Read More »
  • Blue Moon/StepStone Finalize Large Recapitalization

    Blue Moon Capital Partners completed a large recapitalization of five seniors housing communities that it developed over the years and were the last remaining assets within its fund, Blue Moon Senior Housing I. CBRE National Senior Housing acted as transaction advisor in the recap and arranged acquisition financing for the deal. StepStone Real... Read More »
  • Evans Closes Another High-Priced SNF Sale in NV

    Just a month after selling a skilled nursing facility in Nevada for the highest per-bed value ever seen in the state, Evans Senior Investments returned to sell another facility in the Las Vegas MSA for the second-highest per-bed price. That is some momentum. Little was disclosed on the deal, but the 1970s-built facility has approximately 150... Read More »
  • Seniors Housing Communities Secure Refinances

    Berkadia recently refinanced Allegro Parkland, an independent living, assisted living and memory care community in Parkland, Florida. A joint venture between Harrison Street Asset Management and Allegro Senior Living was the borrower. The community opened in March 2020 (perhaps not the best timing) and features 61 independent living, 88 assisted... Read More »
  • PACS Group Expands in Four States

    After Senior Living Investment Brokerage announced the sale of three assets in Soldotna and Kenai, Alaska, and Caldwell, Idaho, PACS Group announced its addition of three seniors housing communities in the same locations. The Utah-based provider purchased the real estate and operations of the Alaska properties, and closed on a lease option for... Read More »
Quarterly Results Are In

Quarterly Results Are In

If you go by the number of transaction announced from April 1, 2017 to June 30, 2017, the second quarter may seem a bit slow, especially when compared to the recent quarterly highs of 90 deals in the second quarter of last year and of 93 deals in the fourth quarter of 2016. Keep in mind, these are preliminary numbers, as we hear of more transactions as the year goes on. M&A activity stayed virtually even in the second quarter, down 1% over the previous quarter, to 75 transactions. The quarter’s deal volume makes up 24% of the 315 deals announced within the past 12 months. Nothing too drastic there. However, based on revealed prices, approximately $9.7 billion was committed to finance... Read More »
SNF, AL and IL Values All Remain High

SNF, AL and IL Values All Remain High

For the four quarters ended June 30, 2017, skilled nursing, assisted living and independent living properties remained at or near their all-time high values, while cap rates decreased across the board. A quarter does not make a trend, but across the seniors housing and care spectrum, values have remained stubbornly high. Stubbornly? Skilled nursing values peaked in 2016, while seniors housing peaked in 2014 with a matching peak in 2016. People, including myself, thought that values would slowing decline, especially if interest rates spiked up. Well, neither event has occurred. For the 12 months ended June 30, 2017, skilled nursing average prices posted a small decline to $97,900 per bed... Read More »
What Do The Experts (and the Audience) Say On The Labor Crisis?

What Do The Experts (and the Audience) Say On The Labor Crisis?

On Thursday, July 13, we hosted a webinar entitled, “The Coming Labor Market Shock to Senior Care,” with panelists Glenn Barclay of Quality Senior Living, John Gonzales of SDG Senior Living and Lori Porter of the National Association of Health Care Assistants. For 90 minutes, the panel discussed how the industry will deal with a labor shortage, improving retention rates, improving onboarding and training practices, an increased minimum wage to $15 per hour in the coming years, technology’s impact on labor demands and how middle market operators will be able to deal with these changes. If you’d like to hear a recording of the webinar, click here. Needless the say, the industry has a lot of... Read More »

Seniors Housing Occupancy Weakens

NIC announced their second quarter occupancy and development trends, and unfortunately it was not pretty. After a first quarter which suffered from the ubiquitous flu season census declines, we had expected, at worst, a small sequential decline in the second quarter, but perhaps a small 10 to 20 basis point uptick, maybe even better. For majority assisted living in the top 31 MSAs, for those properties open for two years (stabilized properties) average occupancy dropped 50 basis points from the first quarter to 88.9%, but down 80 basis points from the year-ago quarter. Historically, the average second quarter sequential decline is 10 basis points, and the current 50 basis point drop was... Read More »

Paying Up For Square Footage In Skilled Nursing

The size of a skilled nursing facility can have important ramifications for the services they provide, especially as many facilities are engaging in higher acuity services and more frail patients. Four-bed wards and even triples became a thing of the past (mostly) more than 10 to 15 years ago. You need a lot more room to provide quality therapy programs, and with increasing demand for private rooms, or at a minimum large semi-private rooms, small facilities on a square foot per bed basis have become less desirable in the market, both for buyers as well as consumers. Most nursing facilities built today have at least 400 square feet per bed, and often much more. But in the past, many had 250... Read More »

The Price of Age in Seniors Housing

Largely, the relationship between the age of a seniors housing property (including assisted and independent living) and the average price per unit is a near-perfect correlation, as the newest communities tend to sell at higher prices than the older ones. That was not the case in 2016, which saw its oldest properties jump in price and its newer ones fall, compared with 2015. Communities built earlier than 2001 (the tail-end of the assisted living building boom) sold for $179,900 per unit, up from $153,800 per unit in 2015, according to The Senior Care Acquisition Report. The anomaly of the year occurred in the group of properties built between 11 and 15 years ago, which sold on average for... Read More »