• Regional Owner/Operator Enters New State

    A regional owner/operator looking to enter the state of Indiana acquired Smith Farms Manor, an independent living community in Auburn, about 30 miles south of the Michigan border. Built in 1998, the community features 51 units and is well maintained. It sits on an attractive four-acre campus down the street from Parkview DeKalb Hospital and off... Read More »
  • Skilled Nursing Portfolio Gets New Operator

    Evans Senior Investments secured a new lease for a skilled nursing portfolio in Tennessee on behalf of an institutional owner. The portfolio features four assets and was operating below 70% occupancy with margins under 10%. Despite that performance, ESI secured a lease $3 million above in-place cash flow, reflecting the operational upside that... Read More »
  • Seniors Housing and Care M&A Remains Elevated in Q1:26

    The number of publicly announced seniors housing and care acquisitions in the first quarter of 2026 reached 231 deals, based on new acquisition data from LevinPro LTC. This represents a 19.8% decrease from the 288 transactions disclosed in the fourth quarter of 2025, but a 25.5% increase from the 184 deals in Q1:25.   “It was always going... Read More »
  • Clarion Acquires Again in Colorado

    Two years after opening a 160-unit seniors housing community in Centennial, Colorado (Denver MSA), MorningStar Senior Living announced an expanding relationship with Clarion Partners, a leading real estate investment company and specialty investment manager of Franklin Templeton, in its acquisition of MorningStar at Holly Park. The community... Read More »
  • Brookdale’s Summer Test Ahead

    Brookdale Senior Living reported its March occupancy results, and it unfortunately took another step in the wrong direction. We will get a better read when peers report first-quarter results and when NIC MAP releases its next tranche of occupancy data, but at this point, it seems as though Brookdale will need a particularly strong performance... 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 »