• Berkadia Announces Array of Closings

    Berkadia is riding a transaction hot streak, closing 19 property sales in the last 45 days. The activity included a portfolio featuring five assisted living/memory care communities across Utah, Wisconsin and Minnesota sold to Jaybird Capital, an affiliate of Jaybird Senior Living, through HUD assumptions. Jaybird assumed management of the... Read More »
  • Tremper Capital Group Closes Several Financings

    Tremper Capital Group showed off its variety with a series of financings closed for clients across the country. They included a construction loan, an acquisition loan, a bank refinance and a portfolio financing. First, the team closed non-recourse construction financing for an assisted living/memory care community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.... Read More »
  • Upstate New York SNF Trades Between Not-for-Profits

    Joe Knapp of the Knapp-Stahler Group at Marcus & Millichap handled the sale of a skilled nursing facility in upstate New York. The Center For Nursing And Rehab in Hoosick Falls, New York, comprises 82 beds in a single-story building that sits on four acres. It was built in 1954, but renovated in 1979 and 1995.  Apparently, the facility... Read More »
  • Acquisition Financing Closed for Distressed California Community

    Private debt fund and direct commercial real estate lender Wilshire Finance Partners closed an $8.15 million first lien bridge loan for the acquisition and repositioning of a distressed seniors housing community in California. The financing included reserves specifically allocated for capital improvements and operational support during the... Read More »
  • Developer and Operator Secure Construction Financing

    Another new development will soon be underway, with BLDG Real Estate and The Fellowship Family securing financing for a $100 million full-continuum community, Fellowship Wildlight. BLDG Real Estate is a real estate development firm that specializes in design, development and asset execution across multiple product types. The Fellowship Family is... Read More »

Portfolio of 18 SNFs gets a $100 million refinance

Subsidiaries of Orion Care Services received a $100 million term loan with an accordion feature to refinance a basket of 18 skilled nursing facilities with embedded equity and to allow for $20 million of excess cash to fund future acquisitions and development. The facilities, all located in Ohio and Michigan, totaled 1,257 beds. The loan, valued at $79,554 per bed, came with a seven-year term and 25-year amortization. Plus, a rate of LIBOR plus 250 basis points was swapped out on 70% of the loan to a 4.30% fixed rate. The five banks in the syndicate approved a 75% loan-to-value, but the loan ended up at 70% due to strong appraisal values as a result of improved property performance. Orion... Read More »

Independent living prices fall

When looking at the average price per unit and average cap rates for the 12 months ending March 31, 2015, most everything stayed the same compared to the 2014 calendar year. This is contrary to the fairly consistent rise in prices and fall in cap rates over the last several years. However, two things stood out. First, the average skilled nursing cap rate fell by 20 basis points from 12.4% to 12.2%. And second, the average price per unit for assisted/independent living fell 4.5% from $208,200 to $198,800. Considering the average price paid per unit for assisted living stayed roughly the same (up $200 to $188,900 per unit), that change came largely from a drop in prices for independent... Read More »

Seniors Housing Weekly Update- Survey Says Cap Rates Will Remain Stable in 2015

June 2, 2015. 60 Seconds with Steve Monroe. A recent survey concludes that cap rates will not be decreasing this year, but expectations were lower than in the previous year… Senior Living Valuation Services just released the results of its annual survey regarding cap rates. Based on 62 surveys returned, the decline in what the respondents believe cap rates will do in the next 12 months was larger than in previous years. This is surprising, because cap rates declined significantly in 2014, according to our statistics, so we would not expect a meaningful change this year. The difference is that our stats are based on actual deals, compared with what the respondents think will happen in... Read More »

Owner of three Texas SNFs exits the market

We’ve heard it plenty of times in the last year, but an owner/operator is exiting the skilled nursing market with the sale of their three Texas skilled nursing facilities. The portfolio featured some assisted and independent living units, with a total of 473 beds/units. The facility in Waco is comprised of 90 skilled nursing beds, 72 assisted living units and 25 independent living units, and was 98% occupied. The facility in Richardson contained 106 skilled nursing beds and 62 assisted living units, and had a census of just 65%. Lastly, the 119-bed facility in Austin, which was solely skilled nursing, was 85% occupied. The portfolio, built from 1986 to 1988, was only operating at a 13.6%... Read More »

New post-acute care venture

Looks like Mainstreet will be gaining some new competition, with a new venture entering the transitional care space, with a plan to develop upwards of 12 projects, all of which are currently in some stage of pre-development. The new venture, called Innovative Health LLC, was started by Brian Cloch, the founder and former President of the Affordable Assisted Living Coalition, and Brad Haber, who came from GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services. Combined, the duo has 50 years of experience in the long-term care industry. The properties will go by a “prototype” with 60 to 70 transitional care beds, mostly in private rooms. To fund the projects, Innovative Health will obtain HUD or... Read More »

The Aging of Skilled Nursing Facilities

The skilled nursing market is clearly aging when facilities 20 years and older make up about 87% of the transactions in 2014. The proportion of facilities sold by age largely depends on the product up for sale that year, but even in 2013, 81% of the sales involved a facility that was built before 1993. That is still a significant percentage, but is not that surprising in the industry. There hasn’t been much new construction of skilled nursing facilities (leaving openings for developers like Mainstreet and Innovative Health). However, average prices reached unprecedented levels despite the older facilities, which may mean that as the market demand increases for facilities with either a... Read More »

Berkadia Closes a Big One

Just how did NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. fund its $875 million acquisition of a 32-property senior living portfolio? They hired Chris Fenton and Jay Healy of Berkadia Seniors Housing and Healthcare to secure $648.2 million of Fannie Mae debt. The 10-year fixed-rate financing features a 4.17% interest rate, a 73.5% loan-to-value and a 30-year amortization. All individual loans were cross collateralized and cross defaulted. The 32 properties are in 12 states with 4,012 independent living units and average occupancy in excess of 90%.   Read More »

New Prudential Fund Secures $110 Million Deal

Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI) closed on an acquisition of three large assisted living and memory care communities for $110 million, or $281,300 per unit. The new fund, Senior Housing Partners V, closed in May with $629 million of capital commitments. It is PREI’s fifth fund dedicated to seniors housing. One community in Tennessee opened in April 2012 and has 130 units, and another in Tennessee opened last October and has 126 units. The third property is in Connecticut, and it opened last September and has 135 units. PREI will retain Hearth Management, which previously owned the properties in a joint venture partnership, as the manager. Tim Cobb and Steve Thomas of Blueprint... Read More »

Watercrest Senior Living Breaks Ground in Florida

Vero Beach, Florida-based Watercrest Senior Living Group, and its development partner Starling Senior Living, celebrated the official groundbreaking of a 90-unit assisted living community in Jacksonville, Florida. It will have 66 assisted living units and 24 memory care units totaling 79,000 square feet. All of Watercrest’s memory care associates are Certified Dementia Specialists. The building was designed by PQH Group.   Read More »

Seniors Housing Weekly Update – Legal Wrangling With CCRCs

May 26, 2015. 60 Seconds with Steve Monroe. One CCRC lost a legal battle with regard to its dining room policies. Other ramifications?… Legal Wrangling With CCRCs The American Seniors Housing Association recently issued a legal brief on a fair housing settlement involving a CCRC. The Justice Department had filed a complaint against a CCRC that had restricted use of the main residential dining room to the residents of the independent living units. This restriction also applied to spouses of an IL resident who were in the skilled nursing unit. Having personally spent a lot of time in a CCRC, I know that many residents don’t like to be reminded of what the future will be like for them,... Read More »

Seniors housing prices by quartile

An owner of a new, well-occupied, profitable seniors housing property may look at the average price paid per unit of $208,200 for assisted and independent living communities in 2014 (according to the 2015 Senior Care Acquisition Report) and think it has no meaning to them and their above-average property. They may have a point, so we broke down the market by quartile and separated out the higher end of the market from the lower. Given the higher valuations and number of high-quality properties coming on the market, it should surprise no one that the upper quartile hit a new record with a price of $250,800 per unit (meaning that 25% of the properties sold in 2014 went for prices above this... Read More »