• Strawberry Fields REIT’s 2025 Growth

    Strawberry Fields REIT reported its 2025 operating results, noting that it was the best year since its inception more than 10 year ago. The company posted significant increases in FFO and AFFO, and it completed more than $110 million in several new acquisitions. Its portfolio now includes 131 skilled nursing facilities, 10 assisted living... Read More »
  • Owner/Operator Exits SNF Sector

    An independent owner/operator exited the skilled nursing sector through its divestment of Sunrise Country Manor, which has 80 beds in Milford, Nebraska, and features a mix of private and semi-private units. It maintained an 83% occupancy rate at the time of the sale. A regional operator looking to expand its footprint in Nebraska acquired the... Read More »
  • Assisted Living Providers Join Forces 

    Majestic Residences recently expanded its footprint, adding 17 assisted living communities and six in active development, through its acquisition of Avendelle Senior Living. Avendelle will be integrated into the Majestic Residences platform, with Avendelle’s corporate team retained. The combined organization will operate under the Majestic... Read More »
  • Investor Secures Financing and Acquires Class-A Community

    BWE’s Seniors Housing Capital Markets Team sold and financed The Capstone at Station Camp, which sits in the Nashville, Tennessee MSA. Built in 2021, the Class-A assisted living and memory care community comprises 100 units in Gallatin. It is operated by TerraBella Senior Living.  BWE represented the seller, Hunt Midwest. The buyer was a... Read More »
  • Multiple SNFs Sell in Separate Transactions

    A large skilled nursing company sold its 181-bed skilled nursing facility to a private investment firm based in New York, exiting South Carolina in the process. The buyer had an existing skilled nursing footprint, and will be leasing this facility to a regional operator. The building was older, built in the 1980s, and was around 80% occupied at... Read More »

The Price of Age in Skilled Nursing

We have covered the demise of the 40-year-old skilled nursing facility in articles and webinars over the past few years, and the acquisition market has taken notice. In 2015, 52% of the properties sold were 40 years old and older, which made sense since nearly half the entire U.S. inventory of SNFs are this old. By 2016, however, 52% of the properties sold were between 20 and 40 years old, which in many cases are considered to be relatively “new.” This helps explain why the average and median price per bed jumped so much in 2016. The percentage in the newest category (less than 20 years old) remained relatively similar from 2015 (22%) to 2016 (20%). With the newer skilled nursing... Read More »

Pay Up, Up North

Once again on the seniors housing side, the Northeast region has topped the charts for the seventh year in a row (per the 22nd Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report), rising to new heights at $292,900 per unit, up 46% from $201,100 per unit in 2015 and even up 4% from 2014’s average of $281,700 per unit. With its high land values and construction costs, it is not surprising that the Northeast has the highest prices. Plus, the Northeast properties are generally in heavily populated, wealthier areas, driving rents up. The West, dominated by sales in expensive markets such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, not surprisingly was valued second-highest among the regions,... Read More »

Adding Value With Memory Care

Over the last two cycles, an interesting trend has occurred in the valuations of assisted living versus assisted living with a memory care component. At the beginning of bull markets, traditional, standalone assisted living communities typically are priced higher than communities with memory care. Then as the bull market strengthens or peaks, the reverse is true, and assisted living/memory care (AL/MC) communities overtake traditional assisted living. This was never more true than in 2016, the sixth year of this bull market. Communities with a memory care component sold on average for $225,400 per unit, according to the 22nd Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, while AL-only... Read More »

Seniors Housing Occupancy Continues Its Decline

As many people expected, seniors housing occupancy levels declined in the first quarter this year, with assisted living posting larger declines than independent living. According to the recently released NIC MAP data, primarily assisted living communities in the 31 primary markets posted a sequential drop in occupancy of 50 basis points to 87.2%, and a year-over-year drop of 100 basis points. Even though these numbers were sort of expected, there was some hope that the sector was starting to turn things around in the quarter. Not yet. It was a little surprising that half the year-over-year drop came in one quarter, however. On the independent living side, occupancy in the top 31 markets... Read More »

Assisted Living Commands a Portfolio Premium in 2017

Every year in our Senior Care Acquisition Report, we try to determine what a market “portfolio premium” would be for assisted living communities, with a portfolio including three or more properties. However, just because there is a portfolio of properties, it doesn’t always mean that the buyer will pay more for them. The premium has to do with both the number of properties as well as the quality. In most years, there is a sizable difference in the average price per unit for portfolios compared with smaller purchases. In 2016, we recorded a drop in the premium to $45,700 per unit, or a 4% drop from 2015’s $47,600 per unit premium. Both premiums fall short of the record ($69,000 per unit in... Read More »

The Price of Empty Units in Assisted Living

When comparing stabilized and non-stabilized assisted living communities (with stabilized defined as having an occupancy equal to or higher than 85%), there is a clear difference in the price per unit, according to the 2017 Senior Care Acquisition Report. The gap between stabilized and non-stabilized properties grew year over year from $61,500 per unit in 2015 ($139,100 per unit for non-stabilized and $200,600 per unit for stabilized) to $87,200 in 2016 ($147,700 per unit for non-stabilized and $234,900 per unit for stabilized). That does not surpass the disparity recorded in 2014, however, when stabilized properties sold for $230,300 per unit compared with just $139,000 per unit for... Read More »