• Northstar Senior Living and Alta Senior Living Merge

    In the mad dash for growth in the seniors housing sector, a lack of new development and an abundance of buyers crowding certain corners of the M&A market has led some owner/operators to seek acquisitions or mergers of whole management companies. It can certainly be a viable alternative that allows one to grow without a massive capital... Read More »
  • In-Place Operator Acquires Senior Care Campus

    CBRE National Senior Housing’s Debt and Structured Finance team arranged acquisition financing for a senior care campus on behalf of Wingate Living and its affiliates. Wingate Living is a Newton, Massachusetts-based senior living developer/owner/operator with a focus on New England. Aron Will and Michael Cregan arranged the financing, securing a... Read More »
  • Joint Venture Takes on Stabilization Project

    Michael Segal, Lauren Nagle and Daniel Waldhorn of Blueprint closed a deal on behalf of an institutional seller that was looking to divest its assisted living/memory care community. The purpose-built asset was constructed in 2000 by a national developer and comprises 52 units. It sits in West Bloomfield, Michigan, which is Michael Segal’s... Read More »
  • Large SNF Portfolio Secures Acquisition Financing

    Marking another milestone for MONTICELLOAM in a banner first quarter, the firm funded $435 million in bridge and working capital financing for a skilled nursing portfolio that encompasses 14 facilities in Maryland. Of the total, $400 million supported the acquisition of the 1,890 beds. The sponsor group is a returning client that owns/operates... Read More »
  • Joint Venture Secures Acquisition Financing

    A joint venture between Winterpast Capital Partners, Vitality Senior Living Management and Virtus Real Estate Capital acquired an assisted living/memory care community, securing bridge financing through Coastal States Bank. The financing includes reserves to support the joint venture’s ongoing repositioning of the community and was structured... 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 »

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 »
A weightier fall

A weightier fall

In our quest to try to determine the truest “market cap rate” for the seniors housing market, for the first time in 2014 we decided to weight each transaction’s cap rate based on its number of units. For the seniors housing market (including both assisted living and independent living), whereas the average un-weighted cap rate in the last four years fell in two descending plateaus, the weighted average had a steadier decrease. In reality, it was a slightly steeper fall, with the unweighted average decreasing by 100 basis points from 2012 to 2015 and the weighted average decreasing by 110 basis points. As in all previous years, the weighted average cap rate in 2015 was lower than the... Read More »

IL cap rates follow prices down

As prices rise, we would expect cap rates to depress accordingly to reflect the increasing values. However, even though the average price per unit for independent living properties fell 22% from $246,800 in 2014 to $192,900 in 2015, the average IL cap rate dropped by 40 basis points from 7.4% in 2014 to 7.0% in 2015. What contributed to this anomaly? First, independent living prices reached unsustainable heights in 2014, propped up by a number of sales of high-quality properties by owners drawn into the frothy market. So, it is not surprising that the average IL price fell to a still-respectable value (the second-highest average price, in fact). Second, there were simply fewer high-cap... Read More »
AL cap rates sink even deeper

AL cap rates sink even deeper

We have spent the last few weeks discussing the skilled nursing market, focusing particularly on the average cap rate falling to near-record lows. But what about the assisted living M&A market? We saw the average price per unit for assisted living communities rise slightly (from $188,700 in 2014 to $189,200 in 2015), and in turn the average cap rate fell by five basis points from 7.75% to 7.7%. Despite the slight decrease, this is still a continuation of the “new normal” AL market. Since the Great Recession, the average cap rate has steadily been declining, and seemed to rest at around 8.7% in 2012 and 2013. But since then, the current market has settled to an average cap rate around... Read More »