• Sonida Senior Living Grows For The Future

    The last to report 2024 earnings in our sector, Sonida Senior Living turned in a decent fourth quarter, but maybe not as good as they were hoping for. They are looking to the future, however, and not past performance, and are gearing up for growth.  While the same-community occupancy of 86.6% in the fourth quarter is certainly above average... Read More »
  • 60 Seconds with Swett: The Demand for SNFs

    We had a fantastic webinar last week that covered our recently published valuation statistics from The Senior Care Acquisition Report but also how valuations, the lending environment and M&A strategies are changing in 2025, so far. Jason Punzel of Senior Living Investment Brokerage, Steve Munn of VIUM Capital and JP LoMonaco of CBRE joined me... Read More »
  • NHI Acquires in New Jersey

    National Health Investors invested $46.3 million, or $386,000 per unit, inclusive of transaction costs, for the acquisition of a seniors housing community in Bergen County, New Jersey. Juniper Village at Paramus comprises 98 assisted living and 22 memory care units. The community has been operated by Juniper Communities since February 2021. The... Read More »
  • Growing Owner/Operator Acquires Illinois SNF/SLF

    Andrew Montgomery of Montgomery Intermediary Group announced a couple of transactions in Illinois and Mississippi. First was for a skilled nursing/supportive living facility in a small, rural Illinois market. The facility features over 130 SNF beds and SLF units and sold to a large owner group that invested alongside a growing owner/operator in... Read More »
  • Berkadia’s Recent Activity

    Berkadia Seniors Housing & Healthcare handled two separate transactions in Michigan and Tennessee. First, Berkadia sold and secured financing for Clinton Creek Assisted Living and Memory Care. The community is in the Detroit MSA and was 90% occupied at closing. It was financed with a bridge-to-HUD loan, representing 67% of the purchase price.... Read More »

The price of empty beds

Not surprisingly, buyers generally pay more for an already stabilized facility, but did the rise in high-acuity sub-acute/transitional care, which can often still be profitable despite an occupancy in the low-80s, lead to a price increase in what we call “non-stabilized” facilities (defined as having an occupancy under 85%)? Well, not in the skilled nursing market. Stabilized facilities saw a slight increase year-over-year, from $94,100 per bed in 2014 to $96,500 per bed in 2015. However, we saw a decrease in the average per-bed price for non-stabilized facilities, from $63,900 in 2014 to $54,300 in 2015. So, the spread between stabilized and non-stabilized grew from $30,200 in 2014 to... Read More »

Buyers pass on premium pricing

We discussed earlier this week the two different assisted living markets, separated by “A” and “B” properties, but the difference was even starker in the independent living market. In 2014, a record year by all accounts for independent living, “A” properties sold on average for $277,900 per unit (boosted by a number of very high quality communities), while “B” properties averaged $155,200 per unit, a difference of $122,700. In 2015, the difference jumped to $170,400, with “A” properties selling on average for $243,300 per unit and “B” properties for just $72,900 per unit, which is low even compared to 2013’s average of $99,600 per unit. What accounted for this shift? In 2014, investors... Read More »
The two Assisted Living markets

The two Assisted Living markets

We first separated out the “A” properties from the “B” properties in 2012, based on the properties’ age, size and location. While there will likely be some “A” communities mixed in with the “B” communities (and the other way around), it all evens out. And when looking at the numbers, these are clearly two different markets. In 2015, “A” properties sold for an average of $248,500 per unit, while “B” properties sold for an average of $138,300 per unit, a difference of $110,200. That means that “A” properties were worth almost double the value of “B” properties. The previous year (2014) the difference was amplified even more. “A” properties in 2014 sold for an average of $244,800 per unit and... Read More »

Bucking the trend

Certainly one of the oddities of the over 70 statistics we provide in The Senior Care Acquisition Report was the relationship between the seniors housing (independent living, assisted living and memory care) cap rate and the 10-year treasury rate. One would expect that in a strong economy, the seniors housing cap rate would fall, while the 10-year treasury rate would rise, making the spread between the two smaller, and vice versa for a weak economy. However, as the seniors housing market has improved and cap rates have accordingly dropped from 7.7% in 2014 to 7.6% in 2015, the average 10-year treasury rate fell 40 basis points to 2.1%. The spread between the two rates thus increased from... Read More »
Pay up for profit potential

Pay up for profit potential

For the first time in five years, there wasn’t a perfect correlation between the average cap rate and the average price per unit in seniors housing (which includes independent living, assisted living and memory care), but it was close, according to the 21st Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report. This was an interesting year, however, where we saw a decrease in the average price paid per unit, and a decrease in the average cap rate. Accordingly, there were some interesting results. First, the two lowest cap rates both experienced decreases in their average price paid per unit (from $310,000 to $242,000 for 6% and $222,000 to $186,800 for 7%). Then there was an increase in the... Read More »

2015: A Year of Extremes?

We have mentioned previously that 2014 saw an unusually large number of high-valued transactions, with the extreme top-end prices driving the average seniors housing prices to historic levels, as well as pushing down cap rates to new lows. But in 2015, while there were proportionally fewer of both the highest-priced deals and the lowest-priced deals (see our April 13 blog post), it was a year of extremes for cap rates. In 2014, the two ends of the market (cap rates above 9% or below 7%) made up 24% of the year’s transaction cap rates. In 2015, cap rates over 9% made up 15% of the total cap rates, and those under 7% accounted for 27%, combining for 42% of the market. Clearly, the boost in... Read More »