• 60 Seconds with Steve Monroe: You’ve Got To Be Kidding

    Sadly, we are not kidding. President Trump has shown his true colors, and his true loyalty to the almighty dollar, with yet another pardon of one of the bad boys of senior care. But this bad boy is the worst of the group. We are referring to the just announced pardon of criminal Joseph Schwartz, the former owner of Skyline Health. Several months... Read More »
  • Publicly Traded REIT Divests Seniors Housing Portfolio

    A Wisconsin-based developer sold its five seniors housing properties in the Badger State to LTC Properties. Tukka Properties has a longstanding relationship with Walker & Dunlop, which had secured development debt, equity and permanent financing for the assets over the years and had also sold a Tukka-developed property to Welltower in 2021... Read More »
  • Sale Revives Stalled Seniors Housing Development

    Blueprint closed on the sale of a partially developed seniors housing community in Pearland, Texas. Originally planned as a 198-unit independent living, assisted living and memory care community on 9.6 acres, the project was approximately 60% complete when development stalled. Blueprint targeted seniors housing operators and developers, as well... Read More »
  • MONTICELLOAM Closes One of Its Largest Financings

    In one of the largest financings the firm has ever completed, MONTICELLOAM, LLC, along with firm affiliates, funded $470.5 million in total bridge and working capital financing for a sixteen-facility skilled nursing portfolio. The sponsor group, which owns and operates over 200 skilled nursing facilities across the country, used the $455.5... Read More »
  • Cash Flowing Assets Trade in Florida and Oregon

    Blueprint was engaged by a repeat institutional private equity client in the sale of a Class-A assisted living/memory care community in the Clearwater, Florida MSA. The community has received investments over the years and offered immediate in-place NOI and strong operating margins, while presenting some value-add opportunities. Kyle Hallion,... 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 »