• NHI and National HealthCare Corporation Ending Master Lease

    In a move to concentrate its portfolio on private pay seniors housing, National Health Investors divested a large skilled nursing portfolio for $560 million, before estimated transaction costs between $6 million and $8 million. The buyer was the current lessee, National HealthCare Corporation, whose legacy master lease was established in 1991 and... Read More »
  • Seniors Housing Communities Sell in Southwest Florida

    Berkadia has announced a couple of closings in southwest Florida. First, Brooks Minford headed to the Tampa, Florida area to sell a 138-unit assisted living/memory care community on behalf of a local developer that was looking to exit the seniors housing business. They had built Tessera of Brandon in 2017 to feature a mix of 98 assisted living... Read More »
  • Global Investment Firm Re-Enters the Senior Care Industry

    Global alternative investment firm Investcorp has re-entered the seniors housing sphere after its exit in 2008. The company has acquired three communities in Massachusetts, California, and New York, all within a short period.  The Massachusetts community is in Boston, and it offers both independent living and affordable seniors housing... Read More »
  • Investor Enters Seniors Housing Sector

    Stone Brook Assisted Living in the Dallas, Texas MSA, has traded hands from a single-community owner/operator to a regionally-based investor. The seller was looking to enter retirement, and the investor wanted to make their first investment in the seniors housing space. Both seller and buyer agreed to pause the process in Fall 2025 to allow the... Read More »
  • Public Company Divests in Arizona

    A publicly traded company focused on seniors housing recently divested a community in Mesa, Arizona. The asset features 68 assisted living and memory care units, and offered meaningful upside potential. Amy Sitzman, Kyle Hallion and Jake Rice of Blueprint handled the deal, which saw a competitive process with multiple offers from groups looking... Read More »
National Health Investors Cuts Dividend

National Health Investors Cuts Dividend

Even though National Health Investors didn’t have to cut its dividend, management made the prudent decision to reduce its quarterly dividend by 18% to 90 cents a share. The yield had been at the high end of its peers at 6.6%, and now it will be 5.4%. Even though at least one analyst last week came forward saying he didn’t think a cut would be made, the market shrugged off the news, with NHI shares dropping just 1.26%. Perhaps they should have gone bigger.  Coincident with the dividend announcement, NHI also announced one of its major tenants, Holiday Retirement Corporation, was going to defer $600,000 in monthly rent for May through July. NHI will take that deferred... Read More »
National Health Investors Stabilizing

National Health Investors Stabilizing

National Health Investors (NHI) was the last of the healthcare REITs to report earnings in what was a very informative earnings season. We have already reported that the REITs and their SHOP portfolios have begun the long-anticipated turnaround as occupancy begins to rebound. Operating costs will be another matter, and it will take a few years to return to normal, whatever that is.  NHI’s three major seniors housing tenants have appeared to stabilize, at least from an occupancy perspective. Bickford Senior Living, which has been responsible for the majority of cash rent deferrals during the pandemic, boosted sequential occupancy by 180 basis points in April to 76.3%. That... Read More »
Promising Census Signs From National Health Investors Update

Promising Census Signs From National Health Investors Update

We are still waiting for that first sign that the seniors housing and care recovery has truly begun. There were some encouraging signs from Welltower’s SHOP portfolio when its census started to rise in the later weeks of March. But so far, that is it. Earlier this month, NIC reported that average occupancy at seniors housing communities fell to a new record low in the first quarter, to 78.8% from 80.6% in the fourth quarter.  National Health Investors also recently provided an update regarding its average occupancy and monthly contractual cash collections. Even though the REIT did not report an increase in census at its three major seniors housing operators, the decline has slowed... Read More »
Two REITs Close Couple of Loans

Two REITs Close Couple of Loans

A couple of REITs in good financial shape (and still open to making new investments) announced a couple of loans closed for senior care facilities. CareTrust REIT completed a $15 million secured mezzanine loan for Next Healthcare’s acquisition of a nine-property skilled nursing portfolio with approximately 1,000 beds in Virginia. The loan came with a five-year term and annual interest rate of 12%, with CareTrust funding it from its $600 million unsecured revolving credit facility. White Oak Healthcare Finance was the senior lender on the deal. Then, National Health Investors funded a $22.2 million construction loan for the development of a 110-unit senior living community in Sussex,... Read More »
Senior Care Stocks Stay High After Vaccine News

Senior Care Stocks Stay High After Vaccine News

After Pfizer’s vaccine announcement on November 9, pretty much every publicly traded senior care provider and REIT saw their share prices jump significantly. We believe that much of the exuberance was mainly from the removal of uncertainty surrounding both the vaccine and the election, but as we said earlier this month, it is not like no one thought a vaccine would not be available in the months ahead. And there was still the fact that the Pfizer vaccine needs to go through the FDA approval process, not to mention manufacturing tens of millions of doses, and then distributing them.  But we also wondered if investors had gotten a little ahead of themselves,... Read More »