• 60 Seconds with Swett: Navigating the Next Five Years in Seniors Housing M&A

    Are we entering the golden age of seniors housing? Next year, the first baby boomers will start turning 80, and with the current lack of new construction, occupancy rates are already rising before the real demographic wave hits. Many investors, both veterans and those new to our space, will feel pressure to grow their seniors housing holdings to... Read More »
  • Blackstone Sheds Another Asset from Its Seniors Housing Portfolio

    Blueprint handled a couple of sales in Florida and Nevada. The first in Florida involved a global private equity firm selling a 145-unit assisted living and memory care community in Boca Raton, Florida. Ben Firestone, Dillon Rudy and Jacob Ghel of Blueprint facilitated The Atrium at Boca Raton’s ownership transfer. The community presented certain... Read More »
  • CareTrust REIT Establishes SHOP Platform

    Three Texas seniors housing communities with 270 assisted living and memory care units were acquired by CareTrust REIT, Inc. The publicly traded REIT purchased the communities for $40 million, or $148,100 per unit. This marks the first investment of CareTrust’s SHOP platform. The communities were 86% occupied at the time of acquisition and will... Read More »
  • Ensign Grows Through Separate Transactions in Three States

    The Ensign Group, Inc. increased its portfolio through three separate acquisitions in Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. The publicly traded provider expanded its growing Midwest footprint through its Kansas acquisition of the real estate and operations of Willow Point Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a 45-bed skilled nursing facility in Kansas... Read More »
  • Developer/Operator Divests to PE Firm

    A developer and operator sold Rivertown Ridge, a Class-A seniors housing community in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan, to a private equity firm. This community, built in 2020, features 152 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care, and has exhibited strong performance.  The seller, Redstone Homes, was... 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 »