• 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 »
REITs Remained Active In May

REITs Remained Active In May

A couple of REITs announced transactions at the end of May: a small one in North Dakota and one large deal abroad. First, North Dakota-based Edgewood Real Estate Investment Trust announced it plans to acquire a financially distressed senior living community in the town of Dickinson (western North Dakota). The seller was First International Bank and Trust, which foreclosed on the community in 2015. Dickinson State University owns the land the community sits on, and will continue to do so. Edgewood will lease the community to its operating subsidiary, Edgewood Healthcare, upon closing. Then across the pond, Omega Healthcare Investors vastly increased its holdings in the United Kingdom,... Read More »

The REIT Price for Seniors Housing

Last week, we looked at the price REITs paid on average for skilled nursing facilities in 2016, according to the 22nd Edition of The Senior Care Acquisition Report, compared with other buyers in the industry. But what about in seniors housing? REITs have been far more active buyers in the space, with many of the private REITs getting involved in a sector with less stroke-of-the-pen risk (in fact, they bought five seniors housing properties to every one skilled nursing facility in 2016). Also, most of the revenue collected by assisted living or independent living communities comes from private payers, and REITs tend not to purchase those assisted living communities with significant, if any,... Read More »
What Do The REITs Know?

What Do The REITs Know?

When the Big Three healthcare REITs (Ventas, HCP and Welltower) largely divested their skilled nursing portfolios in the past few years, it prompted questions about the industry’s health. The exodus was kicked off in August 2015 by Ventas, which spun out most its skilled nursing/post-acute care portfolio into a separate REIT, Care Capital Properties (which just this month agreed to merge with Sabra Health Care REIT). Then, effective November 1, 2016, HCP followed suit, in a spin-off of its troubled HCR ManorCare assets (over 320 properties) into Quality Care Properties. Finally, after over a year of denying any such move, Welltower sold a 75% stake in 28 Genesis Healthcare-operated... Read More »

The Santa Stock Rally Is Stalling

We were supposed to see stocks rise this month, but so far the market is down as are seniors housing stocks. So what happened to the Santa rally? While we still have a few weeks to go before the end of the year, the markets have been sinking, and almost all seniors housing and care stocks have dropped, with Brookdale Senior Living falling the most, with a loss in value of 12% since November 30. It has now dropped below the psychologically important $20 threshold, and any bad news could add insult to injury. The others are closer to a mid-single-digit decline this month, but with one glaring exception. That is The Ensign Group, which is up just over 2% this month as it keeps chugging along... Read More »

The Senior Care Pricing Disconnect

The public equity market for senior care operating companies and REITs is getting slammed, but the private investment market remains strong. The pricing disconnect continues. Public equity investors continue to slam the senior care operating companies and health care REITs. All one has to do is look at what has happened to Kindred Healthcare and Genesis Health this past week or two, when both companies dropped to new lows and have not yet recovered. Fears of reimbursement pressure, fears of OIG investigations, fears of staffing costs. All have some degree of merit, but it seems like an overreaction to me. Just look at the private market, where both acquisition pricing and demand remain... Read More »