• WesBanco Launches New Healthcare Vertical

    WesBanco Bank recently launched its dedicated healthcare vertical, under the leadership of Suzanne Myers as EVP-Commercial Healthcare Director, and is already off to the races with a handful of senior care transactions closed. The strategic initiative will provide financing across the continuum of care, including seniors housing, skilled nursing,... Read More »
  • LTC Properties Acquires Class-A California Community

    JLL Capital Markets completed the sale of Loma Clara, an 89-licensed-bed, Class-A seniors housing community in Morgan Hill, California. JLL’s Seniors Housing Capital Markets team marketed the property on behalf of the seller, Steadfast Senior Living, and procured the buyer, LTC Properties. The REIT acquired the community within its SHOP segment... Read More »
  • Not-for-Profit Divests Texas Standalone MC Community to Family-Owned Company

    Matthew Alley of Senior Living Investment Brokerage announced another Lone Star State deal, selling a 20-unit memory care community in Sugar Land, Texas. Built in 1998, the community was the only seniors housing asset of a not-for-profit organization, which decided to divest. It was 80% occupied but losing around $30,000 a year on $1.26 million... Read More »
  • Owner/Operator Purchases Vacant Community for Reopening

    Blueprint was engaged to market a 100-unit vacant assisted living community located 10 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio, that had been taken offline following operational challenges. The community sustained profitability during prior operations. Blueprint generated four competitive offers from sophisticated owner/operators with proven capabilities... Read More »
  • Frank Cassidy Officially Nominated as FHA Commissioner

    Frank Cassidy, most recently a Walker & Dunlop senior managing director of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Finance where he originated loans for multifamily, nursing home and seniors housing properties, has been officially nominated by President Trump as Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the HUD. He... 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 »
Back to Business for KeyBank

Back to Business for KeyBank

Less than a month after KeyBank Real Estate Capital announced its $703 million financing to fund Blackstone’s purchase of 64 seniors housing communities from HCP Inc., it was back to business for the commercial real estate financing provider with another HUD refinance. John Randolph of KeyBank’s Healthcare Group arranged a $15.4 million HUD loan for a 120-bed skilled nursing facility in Harlingen, Texas, which is located just a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The 35-year loan refinanced existing debt on the facility, which was built in 2012, which helps explain the high value and debt of $128,300 per bed. Read More »
Red Tape Results in Senior Care Sale

Red Tape Results in Senior Care Sale

Sometimes size really does matter for the owner of a senior care facility, especially in this era of red tape gone rampant. We know that with every regulation, there is an added cost coupled with the intended benefit. But it reaches a point where those single- or two-facility owners in senior care cannot keep up and provide the same quality care at a profit. That was the stimulus for a single-asset owner’s exit from the senior care business, which was handled by Toby Siefert and Nick Cacciabando of Senior Living Investment Brokerage. The owner originally built the property as a 50-bed skilled nursing facility in Portage, Pennsylvania (about 80 miles east of Pittsburgh) in 2003, adding a... 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 »

From Coulterville to California for Cambridge Realty Capital Companies

Cambridge Realty Capital Companies closed a couple of transactions for clients across the country. First up, in Coulterville, Illinois, the Cambridge team arranged a $3.76 million HUD refinance for a 71-bed skilled nursing facility. The owner, a Missouri LLC, received a 35-year, fully amortized term. Then, a California LLC received a $3.7 million HUD loan, courtesy of Cambridge’s Hymie Barber, to refinance its nearly 20-year old 58-bed assisted living community in Arroyo Grande, California. The loan comes with a 27-year term. Read More »

LCB Senior Living Brings Its Luxury Brand to Fairfield County

LCB Senior Living has already established itself as a luxury provider of assisted living/memory care services in New England, with 11 communities in Massachusetts, three in Vermont, two each in Connecticut and New Hampshire, and one in Rhode Island. The developer also has two construction projects in Massachusetts and one in New Hampshire. But now, LCB is taking its luxury brand to the high-income and high-cost Fairfield County for the first time, with two developments in Stamford and Darien, Connecticut (both about 45 miles from New York City). In June 2016, LCB purchased a one-acre parcel near downtown Stamford and is currently building a seven-story, 104-unit assisted living/memory care... Read More »
Senior Care Staffing Woes Continue

Senior Care Staffing Woes Continue

Too many stories about employee theft and abuse, and Medicaid and Medicare fraud, cloud the senior care industry’s future. I don’t know about you, but I am always surprised by how many stories I read about employee theft in senior care communities, Medicaid and Medicare fraud by skilled nursing owners, assaults by employees on residents who they are supposed to take care of. What is it about this industry that seems to attract people with, well, less than good intentions? On the fraud side, there is one answer, of course, and that is greed. The problem, however, is that some of these people get caught, and then come back under a different name or using a front LLC and start all over... Read More »
Quality Care Properties Getting Ready To Deal

Quality Care Properties Getting Ready To Deal

Timing is everything. In the April issue of The SeniorCare Investor, we wrote about what the decline in financial performance at HCR ManorCare (HCRMC) from the 12-month period ending September 30, 2016 to the 12-month period ending December 31, 2016. Annualized EBITDAR dropped by $5.5 million which, although not a big number, was enough to cause fixed coverage to drop a little to 1.10x for the December 31 full-year period. At the property level, however, the coverage increased to 0.84x, a ratio that is still unacceptable and not sustainable. The company’s skilled nursing facilities are at 82.6% occupancy, which is also low for a company of its quality, and the 60 assisted living/memory... Read More »
HJ Sims Heads to Hudson

HJ Sims Heads to Hudson

Interest rates are on the rise, as Janet Yellen moves to end an era of unprecedented stimulative monetary police. With that shift likely coming, borrowers will look to take advantage of low interest rates now. That was clearly on the mind of the owners of a 150-acre not-for-profit CCRC in northeast Ohio, who worked with HJ Sims to arrange a $32 million debt modification. Opened in 1989 in the town of Hudson (Akron/Cleveland MSA), the community features 225 independent living units, 66 IL villas, 59 assisted living units and 75 skilled nursing beds, in addition to a host of amenities like three on-site restaurants, a pub, fitness/aquatic center, three stocked fishing lakes and a three-hole... 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 »