• 60 Seconds with Swett: The Great Debates of Senior Care

    Next week for our Second Quarter Investor Call, sponsored by Ziegler, we’ll be trying something different that is sure to be both entertaining and useful for our audience of operators, investors, brokers, lenders and everyone else. We’ll be tackling The Great Debates of Senior Care, covering some of the most important issues facing the industry.... Read More »
  • Thank You Ortelius?

    Brookdale Senior Living just reported June occupancy, and the increases were much better than we expected for a second quarter, which historically has been a mixed bag for the industry. Let’s just say, we were impressed. June’s same-community weighted average occupancy was 81.1%, up 220 basis points year over year and up 50 basis points... Read More »
  • SLIB Sells SNF in New Jersey

    Toby Siefert of Senior Living Investment Brokerage got a skilled nursing sale in New Jersey over the finish line after survey issues caused a buyer switch-up. Built in 1980, Medford Care Center is located in the town of Medford (about an hour east of Philadelphia) and features 180 beds on an 11-acre campus. Operations were not strong, and the... Read More »
  • Carnegie Capital Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary with Texas Portfolio Deal

    Carnegie Capital, the national seniors housing debt brokerage founded and run by JD Stettin and David Farhadian, celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a $124 million, or $117,100 per bed, portfolio acquisition transaction. Carnegie provided a combination of advisory work and debt placement for the nine-skilled nursing facility portfolio with... Read More »
  • 12 Oaks Senior Living Appoints New CFO

    12 Oaks Senior Living appointed Elliott Westerman as CFO, effective immediately. Westerman has more than two decades of leadership experience across senior living, healthcare, and real estate sectors. As CFO, Westerman will oversee all aspects of financial management, including financial planning and analysis, capital structure strategy,... Read More »
The Volatile Insurance Market

The Volatile Insurance Market

As the M&A market declined in activity from the heights of early-2022, we kept hearing that every deal was much harder to close and experienced more delays than in recent memory. The capital markets had a major impact on that, understandably, but another wrench thrown in many buyers’ M&A plans was the volatile (and pricey) insurance market for both the property’s real estate and operating business.  There are plenty of reasons to explain the increase in insurance costs in the last year. First, rates had been dropping for about 15 years until around 2018/19 due to providers wanting to build scale, even if it meant taking losses to get there. Then, as Chip Stuart of HUB... Read More »
Omega Healthcare Investors’ Shares Surge

Omega Healthcare Investors’ Shares Surge

The good news seems to keep on coming. Omega Healthcare Investors released its first quarter 2023 results, and while the past was still problematic, the future is looking brighter. The REIT is the largest owner of skilled nursing facilities in the country, and its customers were particularly hard hit in the pandemic. It appears, however, that most of the restructurings and asset sales are behind them, even though there are a few significant ones ongoing. The positive attitude and look to the future sent the share price surging by nearly 10%. The recently announced rent and interest deferrals, and changes, include LaVie, Maplewood Senior Living, Agemo (which has resumed its $6.4 million... Read More »
Carnegie Capital Secures Bank Refinance

Carnegie Capital Secures Bank Refinance

A regional owner/operator borrower engaged JD Stettin of Carnegie Capital to source a loan to pay off its maturing bridge acquisition debt on a portfolio of four skilled nursing facilities with 309 beds in southern Oklahoma. The current owner had been operating the assets for a number of years before exercising on a purchase option to buy them over two years ago. A HUD takeout was part of the plan, but the portfolio needed more time to stabilize. Portfolio-wide EBITDAR was near break-even prior to debt service, and state approval of the new Medicaid reimbursement rates wasn’t issued prior to closing the new loan. Carnegie sourced multiple term sheets from banks, credit unions,... Read More »
Upscale Seniors Housing in the News

Upscale Seniors Housing in the News

As the recovery from the pandemic seems to be slowing (or stabilizing), we have always said that the more upscale communities would have a better go of it than the more middle market ones. Location seems to be more important than age, as well.  We toured a large community in Stamford, Connecticut that opened last year, and another smaller one in Darien, Connecticut that opened more than 25 years ago. The former is operated by Epoch Senior Living and the latter by Atria Senior Living. We actually went to the Atria property for the open house 25 years ago when CareMatrix (Abe Gosman) built it. Both communities were very nice and doing very well but could not have been more different,... Read More »
Meridian Capital Group Releases Latest Activity

Meridian Capital Group Releases Latest Activity

Meridian Capital Group’s Senior Housing and Healthcare Team has closed more than $515 million in transaction volume since mid-March for a combination of 33 facilities in seven states. That is a healthy chunk of all the lending that is getting done these days. The transactions were negotiated by Meridian’s Senior Housing and Healthcare Platform, led by Ari Adlerstein and Josh Simpson. Most notably, the team arranged $185 million in financing from a commercial bank and finance company to facilitate the acquisition of 13 skilled nursing facilities totaling 1,002 beds in West Virginia. Omega Healthcare Investors purchased four of the facilities and co-invested with a private family office on... Read More »
SLIB Announces Deals in Washington and West Virginia

SLIB Announces Deals in Washington and West Virginia

Two teams at Senior Living Investment Brokerage announced deals this week, including one in Washington state and another in West Virginia. First, in Washington, Jason Punzel, Brad Goodsell, Vince Viverito and Jake Anderson sold a 54-unit assisted living community in the town of Shelton (on the Olympic peninsula). Built in 2000, it was previously owned by an investment group that was looking to divest its out-of-state assets. Occupancy was decent at 80%, but that could be improved. In the end, a Pacific Northwest owner/operator paid $4.9 million, or $90,700 per unit, for the community and plans to spend more on capital improvements and to increase the number of licensed beds.  Next,... Read More »
Ohio AL Community Sells to Owner/Operator

Ohio AL Community Sells to Owner/Operator

An Ohio assisted living community that was formerly an elementary school sold to an in-state owner/operator thanks to Connor Doherty and Ryan Kelly of Blueprint Healthcare Real Estate Advisors. The duo represented the community’s original developer, which had taken over operational control of the community in 2018 after the previous operator declined their lease renewal. What an eventful several years of operating they signed up for.  Built in 1920, the school was redeveloped into a 52-unit seniors housing community in 2007 and still features a gymnasium, plus the only sit-down restaurant in the town of Antwerp. Outsiders were allowed to dine there, except during the pandemic, of course.... Read More »
LTC Properties Reports First Quarter Results

LTC Properties Reports First Quarter Results

We are still in the beginning stage of the first quarter earnings season with just a few companies in our sector reporting so far. LTC Properties reported first quarter results on April 27, with earnings slightly below expectations, but revenues above. LTC is one of the smallest REITs in our sector, but the only one that pays its dividends monthly, which we always considered a plus for investors. Like all of the REITs, some of their operators have had challenges during the pandemic keeping up with lease or mortgage payments, but there appears to be a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. The good news for LTC is that they really have no significant debt maturities looming for the next... Read More »
CCRC in the Works in Los Angeles Area

CCRC in the Works in Los Angeles Area

Spieker Senior Development Partners broke ground on a major CCRC project in Woodland Hills, California, about 25 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Wisteria at Warner Center will feature six stories on 17 acres, with a total of 695 units, the vast majority of which would be reserved for independent living residents. In addition to the independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing services, the community will include over 1.1 million square feet of medical office space. Entrance fees will start in the $500,000s and surpass $1 million for the larger penthouses, which can reach nearly 3,000 square feet. KTGY designed the project, and W.E. O’Neil Construction is the... Read More »
Omega Healthcare Investors’ Shares Surge

The Ensign Group Slightly Beats Forecasts

The Ensign Group posted another solid quarter, beating its forecasts by a bit, but not by enough to get investors excited. The shares traded down by about 3.6% on a day that the overall market was up by about 2%. The 52-week range is $70.29 to $102.26 per share, and with the current value just under the high, investors may be thinking that there is not much room to go up in the near term. Year over year, quarterly revenues were up 24.3%, adjusted earnings per share were up 14.1% and occupancy keeps on rising as well. They purchased the operations of 19 nursing facilities during the quarter. Unlike most companies, Ensign continues to grow, and grow profitably. But it is not just the... Read More »
Blueprint Closes South Carolina Deal without Delay

Blueprint Closes South Carolina Deal without Delay

WindRiver Companies acquired a value-add assisted living/memory care community in South Carolina, with Kyle Hallion of Blueprint Healthcare Real Estate Advisors handling the deal on behalf of the undisclosed seller. The campus is the seventh owned asset for WindRiver, which operates another 12 properties in the Southeast, Texas and Oklahoma.  Originally built in the late 1990s, the community features 77 units across two buildings. The smaller building that houses the memory care will have a portion of it converted to a corporate training center and regional office for WindRiver. That should help the company as it looks to grow its regional operating platform in the state. Occupancy was... Read More »