• 60 Seconds with Swett: Navigating the Next Five Years in Seniors Housing M&A

    Are we entering the golden age of seniors housing? Next year, the first baby boomers will start turning 80, and with the current lack of new construction, occupancy rates are already rising before the real demographic wave hits. Many investors, both veterans and those new to our space, will feel pressure to grow their seniors housing holdings to... Read More »
  • Blackstone Sheds Another Asset from Its Seniors Housing Portfolio

    Blueprint handled a couple of sales in Florida and Nevada. The first in Florida involved a global private equity firm selling a 145-unit assisted living and memory care community in Boca Raton, Florida. Ben Firestone, Dillon Rudy and Jacob Ghel of Blueprint facilitated The Atrium at Boca Raton’s ownership transfer. The community presented certain... Read More »
  • CareTrust REIT Establishes SHOP Platform

    Three Texas seniors housing communities with 270 assisted living and memory care units were acquired by CareTrust REIT, Inc. The publicly traded REIT purchased the communities for $40 million, or $148,100 per unit. This marks the first investment of CareTrust’s SHOP platform. The communities were 86% occupied at the time of acquisition and will... Read More »
  • Ensign Grows Through Separate Transactions in Three States

    The Ensign Group, Inc. increased its portfolio through three separate acquisitions in Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. The publicly traded provider expanded its growing Midwest footprint through its Kansas acquisition of the real estate and operations of Willow Point Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a 45-bed skilled nursing facility in Kansas... Read More »
  • Developer/Operator Divests to PE Firm

    A developer and operator sold Rivertown Ridge, a Class-A seniors housing community in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan, to a private equity firm. This community, built in 2020, features 152 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care, and has exhibited strong performance.  The seller, Redstone Homes, was... Read More »
The Senior Care Investors Have Spoken

The Senior Care Investors Have Spoken

Last week, we hosted a 90-minute webinar called “Seniors Housing M&A: The Numbers, the Deals and the 2017 Forecast” with panelists Arnold Whitman of Formation Capital, Bill Mulligan of Ziegler and Alan Plush of HealthTrust, and Steve Monroe moderating. The panel discussed our 2016 M&A statistics for the skilled nursing, assisted living and independent living M&A markets (to be published in the 22nd Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report this March), which saw new record-high prices for SNFs and ALFs. But those high prices contradict a growing sense of caution among investors, and lead us to wonder if we have passed the peak. Our listeners to the webinar certainly thought... Read More »
Seniors Housing Cap Rates On The Rise

Seniors Housing Cap Rates On The Rise

For the first time since the Great Recession, average seniors housing cap rates increased year-over-year from 7.6% in 2015 to 8.2% in 2016. While that only approaches the high of the previous bull market (8.3% in 2007) it is a sharp break from this current bull market. But if there are a number of other signs that the market is still strong in 2016, why did average cap rates go up 60 basis points? First, as unprecedented high prices forced a number of buyers out of the market for high-quality “A” properties, investors pounced on more value-add opportunities to get their returns. Those riskier deals obviously featured higher cap rates. Second, the cost of borrowing went up in 2016,... Read More »
Skilled Nursing Cap Rates Stable after Record Rise in Price

Skilled Nursing Cap Rates Stable after Record Rise in Price

We are less than a week away from our webinar “Seniors Housing M&A: the Numbers, the Deals and the 2017 Forecast,” where we discuss the results of our soon-to-be-released Senior Care Acquisition Report. Prices have risen to new heights in skilled nursing, nearly surpassing $100,000 per bed at $99,200 per bed. But what happened to skilled nursing cap rates, which most buyers prize far more as a valuation tool than price per bed? In the last couple of years, it has remained remarkably stable at 12.2% (identical to its 2015 level), with just a 20 basis point variance over the past three years. Although not reaching the record-low from the last bull market (12.1% in 2007), skilled nursing... Read More »
Values in the Seniors Housing and Care M&A Market Jump

Values in the Seniors Housing and Care M&A Market Jump

For the four quarters ended September 30, average prices in the independent living market have increased, as have assisted living prices and skilled nursing prices. The seniors housing and care M&A market has seen less activity this year than in recent years, but that doesn’t mean buyers are not paying up for the assets they want. The best example is in the independent living market, where the average price paid in the four quarters ended September 30 was $234,000 per unit, or 21% higher than in calendar year 2015. The average cap rate remained steady at 7.0%. Assisted living prices have risen as well, jumping a smaller 5% for the past four quarters compared with 2015 to an average... Read More »
And the vote is in…

And the vote is in…

On October 13, our editor Steve Monroe moderated a webinar called “Skilled Nursing: Buying, Selling & Valuing,” with panelists Ben Atkins, Chairman of Traditions Senior Management, Charles Bissell, Executive Director of Integra Realty Resources, Ben Firestone, Senior Managing Director & Founding Partner of Blueprint Healthcare Real Estate Advisors, and Stephen Graham, SVP/Director of Post-Acute Acquisition & Development of MedEquities Realty Trust. During the 90 minutes, we posed two poll questions to our listeners and got some interesting results. First, in response to “Should high acuity, subacute SNFs sell with a higher or lower cap rate than more traditional SNFs?,” 55% of... Read More »

NIC’s Third Quarter Numbers

NIC has come out with its third quarter occupancy, construction, asking rates and absorption stats, and we have to admit, we were disappointed with the numbers, especially on occupancy. Assisted living occupancy was basically flat with the second quarter amid hopes that there might be some acceleration. Independent living rose by just 10 basis points from the second quarter and was flat with a year ago. Asking rents were at their highest in years, but the numbers do not factor in the discounting which remains prevalent in many markets. Now, with Hurricane Matthew about to hit the southeast coast, and communities in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas already beginning to evacuate residents... Read More »