• 60 Seconds with Swett: October Smashes M&A Record

    We were predicting a record-breaking end to the year in terms of M&A activity, but we are not sure we expected a 100+ deal month, with 110 transactions and counting. Just to put that in perspective, the previous record for any month was 77 deals in October of last year, and only four months had previously broken the 70-deal barrier. So this... Read More »
  • Newmark Ends October with Portfolio Closings

    Newmark announced a flurry of transactions at the end of October involving various institutional firms. The largest was a portfolio of seniors housing communities in the Northeast known as “Stars and Stripes.” Word on the street is that the portfolio sold for north of $800 million, and that a sub-portfolio was valued at more than $1 million per... Read More »
  • Stacked Stone Acquires Missouri Portfolio

    Stacked Stone Ventures announced the purchase of a seven-community assisted living/memory care portfolio in Missouri for $71 million, or $212,600 per unit. Totaling 334 units and 405 beds, the Oak Pointe portfolio was developed between 2015 and 2020 by an investor group called ClearPath Senior Housing, which included Jeff Binder of Senior Living... Read More »
  • Blueprint Sells Georgia Community to LTC Properties

    LTC Properties divested seven skilled nursing facilities through two separate deals for $122 million in October. In those transaction announcements, the publicly traded REIT noted that it intended to redeploy proceeds for the acquisition of newer, stabilized SHOP assets. It looks like that’s what the publicly traded REIT did in Georgia at the... Read More »
  • MIG Announces Two Closings

    Montgomery Intermediary Group announced a couple of transactions at the end of October. First, Andrew Montgomery sold a 120-bed skilled nursing facility in southern Illinois in a value-add deal. Built in the 1960s and 1970s, the facility had a roughly 50% Medicaid census, with between 30% and 35% private pay and 5% to 10% Medicare. It was losing... Read More »
Good News from Brookdale and Capital Senior Living

Good News from Brookdale and Capital Senior Living

Finally, we have had some good news from the two largest publicly traded senior living companies, Brookdale Senior Living and Capital Senior Living. Let’s just say, it has been a long time coming. Capital Senior Living reported a sequential increase in occupancy of 30 basis points in the third quarter, an increase that was continuing to rise in September and into October, so the fourth quarter should be upbeat as well. In fact, from June to September same-community occupancy increased by 90 basis points. These numbers exclude their two communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. On the negative side, labor costs increased by 4% in the third quarter, which contributed to a 2.4% decline in... Read More »
What Happens When You Weight A Cap Rate By Beds?

What Happens When You Weight A Cap Rate By Beds?

Partly due to historical precedent, we have always presented our cap rate analysis on an unweighted average basis, meaning that the cap rate for a portfolio of facilities would carry the same weight as that of a single 80-bed facility. For those who believe that portfolios will usually command a lower cap rate, then a weighted average would be the most accurate method to determine what is really happening in the market. Even a 200-bed facility acquisition, because of the implied increase in investment risk, should in theory be treated differently from that of a 50-bed rural facility. Consequently, a few years ago we went back and recalculated the cap rates to weight them based on the... Read More »
Our Listeners Speak: Real Estate vs. Business Value

Our Listeners Speak: Real Estate vs. Business Value

We recently hosted a webinar on a topic that has been on the minds of many as the healthcare real estate market hit record-high prices (in seniors housing and care) and deals with changing acuity and reimbursement environments. “Real Estate vs. Business Value For Healthcare Properties” featured moderator Steve Monroe of The SeniorCare Investor and speakers James Tellatin of Tellatin, Short & Hansen, and Chuck Herman of Charles Herman Consulting (formerly CIO of Welltower), and a 90-minute discussion on the valuation practices for skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities, LTACs, behavioral healthcare and acute care hospitals. We also brought in our listeners to the... 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 »
Deals Down So Far in 2017

Deals Down So Far in 2017

Long-term care has experienced a dip in M&A, but after nearly three straight years of 80+ transactions per quarter (starting in Q3:2014 with 83), with a couple exceptions, it is about time the M&A juggernaut slows down a bit. The first quarter’s volume fell to 76 deals, down from 93 in the previous quarter and from 84 in the year-ago quarter. And as of May 23, 2017, deal volume has so far not kept pace compared with the same period in 2016 with just 118 long-term care transactions recorded compared with 145 in 2016, a 19% difference. However, spending has nearly doubled (to $7.52 billion so far in 2017 from $4.37 billion in 2016), thanks to a few large deals that were announced in... Read More »