• Sabra Health Care REIT Picks Up the Transaction Pace

    Sabra Health Care REIT is ramping up its senior care M&A activity and its SHOP exposure, set to exceed the $1 billion in investments it spent in 2025. The REIT completed several transactions during the first quarter, with investments closed year to date totaling $206.1 million, with an estimated initial cash yield of 8.0%. The pipeline... Read More »
  • Clarion Partners Continues Growing

    Clarion Partners is continuing on its acquisition streak, adding Legacy House of Avondale to its portfolio. The 169-unit Class-A assisted living/memory care community is in the Phoenix, Arizona MSA, with a strong operational footing. Clarion Partners further expanded its relationship with MorningStar Senior Living through the deal, partnering... Read More »
  • Blueprint Handles Virginia Deal

    A publicly traded company engaged Blueprint to sell a value-add independent living community in a growing submarket of Richmond, Virginia. Built in 1987, the 122-unit community could benefit from investments in the physical plant. It was also not stabilized.  A competitive market generated multiple bids in multiple rounds and improved... Read More »
  • Public REIT Acquires Full-Continuum Communities

    A pair of full-continuum seniors housing communities that sit approximately 10 miles apart traded in Northwest Arkansas. Village on the Park Bentonville in Bentonville and Village on the Park Rogers in Rogers offer a total of 208 independent living, assisted living and memory care units. Each community also offers contiguous land for further... Read More »
  • VIUM Capital Leads HUD LEAN Mid-Year Rankings

    HUD’s fiscal year 2026 hit the halfway point on March 31, and so far VIUM Capital is leading the way in closed 232 loans and by total loan volume with 41 transactions and $598.0 million in volume, respectively. That represents 22% of the program’s closed loans in the first half of the fiscal year and 19% of the total volume. And 32 of VIUM’s HUD... 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 »