• 60 Seconds with Swett: Sticks and Bricks in ’26?

    The talk around new development is getting a lot more serious in the seniors housing industry, leading us to wonder if our 2024 prediction of “Sticks and Bricks in ‘26” may actually come true, somewhat. Back then, we may have thought that interest rates would have come down a bit more by now, but that the FOMO of getting involved in seniors... Read More »
  • Wyoming SNF Sale Sets New State Record

    There was a new record set for skilled nursing pricing in the state of Wyoming with the sale of Big Horn Rehabilitation and Care Center in Sheridan. Built in the 1960s, the facility features 128 beds and was 61% occupied. It was owned by a regional operator that was looking to recycle capital.  Before the marketing process, Evans Senior... Read More »
  • Owner/Operator Acquires Facility Out of Bankruptcy

    A senior care facility in Worcester, Massachusetts, sold as part of a bankruptcy process with the help of Patrick Burke and Toby Siefert of Senior Living Investment Brokerage. Built in 1970, Donna Kay Rest Home features 60 licensed beds in 31 units, providing a higher level of care and supervision than assisted living but at a lesser acuity than... Read More »
  • Civitas Sells Community to Clarion

    Hap Knowles and Nick Stahler of the Knapp-Stahler Group at Institutional Property Advisors announced that they led the sale of a seniors housing community in the Phoenix, Arizona MSA, to the fast-growing real estate investment firm Clarion Partners. The deal appears to be The Retreat at Alameda, a 110-unit assisted living/memory care community in... Read More »
  • Blueprint Handles Recapitalization

    Blueprint handled the recapitalization of Forest Hills Commons, a 2017-developed, 119-unit assisted living/memory care community in the Louisville, Kentucky MSA. A Louisville-based senior living owner/operator/developer engaged Blueprint in the third quarter of 2025 to begin the process. The asset demonstrated strong in-place performance and... Read More »

An Optimal Size for Skilled Nursing?

As the skilled nursing market evolves, lengths of stay and occupancy decline, and new entrants like Mainstreet change the way we view skilled nursing/post-acute care facilities, what is the ideal size of facility now? Based on 2016 sales according to the 22nd Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, the average size of skilled nursing facilities sold dropped for the first time in three years to 122 beds, and was closer to the historical norm of 120 beds. That fell from 130 beds in 2015, and is the lowest since 2013, when facilities averaged 121 beds. The smallest facility sold in 2016 was 40 beds, compared with 30 beds in 2015, while the largest facility sold in 2016 was 744 beds,... Read More »
Mainstreet growth

Mainstreet growth

Mainstreet Health Investments (Mainstreet) is adding seven seniors housing and care properties to its portfolio from several sellers, representing a total purchase price of approximately $152 million. First, the company bought four Mainstreet Property Group (MPG)-developed transitional care/assisted living facilities, which are scheduled to open between November 2016 and March 2017 in Texas and Kansas, for $92.8 million, or almost $247,000 per bed, with a year-one cap rate of 7.7%. The Ensign Group will manage the facilities. Second, Mainstreet is acquiring one transitional care/memory care facility in Evanston, Illinois from its existing operating partner Symphony Post-Acute Network for... Read More »
Mainstreet goes to Liverpool

Mainstreet goes to Liverpool

Most people know Mainstreet as a developer in the post-acute care world, and a prolific one at that. After all, it’s the company’s high-end, amenity-rich transitional care developments that have made a big splash in the industry. But Mainstreet’s most recent acquisition involved a senior living community, which features 186 independent and assisted living units. The community is located just outside of Syracuse, New York, in the town of Liverpool, and was built in phases in 1992 and 1996. Owned and operated by a locally-based manager, The Hearth, the community also carried the Enriched Housing Program licensure designation. The Hearth will lease the community back from Mainstreet, which... Read More »
Age before location

Age before location

Highlighting a growing issue for the country’s aging skilled nursing facility inventory, a facility’s regional advantage may not matter much for owners of facilities in high barrier-to-entry markets looking to maximize value. Surprisingly, the Northeast region, because of its higher average income, property values and barriers to entry, saw the highest average cap rate of any region in 2015, at 13.3%. This is up 70 basis points from the average in 2014 of 12.6%, and up 90 basis points from 2013, when the region averaged the lowest cap rate in the country. Conversely, the North Central region, which has seen tremendous growth in skilled nursing development (buoyed by Mainstreet’s pipeline),... Read More »
Phoenix rises

Phoenix rises

There has been an uptick in seniors housing and care construction in the Phoenix area in just this year. First, Mainstreet announced its first development in the state of Arizona, breaking ground in mid-February on its 94-bed skilled nursing/assisted living facility at a cost of $21.9 million, or $233,000 per bed. The facility also is the first to be operated by Mainstreet Health, the developer’s new operating company. Then, Love Funding announced that it provided a $15 million bridge loan to finance the construction of a 90-unit assisted living/memory care community in the adjacent town of Peoria. The private pay community, which will feature 58 memory care units and 32 assisted living... Read More »