As the year winds down, senior housing acquisitions are still taking place at a fast clip. Examples of this can be found all across the country, but especially in the West, where a string of high-profile acquisitions recently took place.
In Abilene, Texas, the Covenant Group and Sagora Senior Living joined forces to purchase the retirement community University Place. The two companies will invest a substantial amount of resources in the community, as Sagora Senior Living will redesign the community’s interior and start multiple community programs. This purchase adds 124 independent living units to the companies’ portfolios and helps extend their footprint in the fast growing western region of the United States.
Also in Texas, Senior Living Investment Brokerage, Inc. recently announced that it sold a 54,000 square-foot skilled nursing facility (SNF) to an undisclosed buyer in Oklahoma for $4.5 million. The SNF, called The Grace Care Center of Lufkin, is located on five acres of land in Lufkin, Texas and contains over 145 beds. The buyer enlisted an operator from Fort Worth, Texas to manage the facility, whose occupancy has hovered around 65 percent for the past few years. Despite the low occupancy figures, the buyer is still excited about the facility, as evidenced by its plans spend over $1 million on capital improvement on the property. It believes that, with a skilled manager and some quality improvements, occupancy will increase markedly, and increases in revenues and profits will quickly follow.
Meanwhile, over in the Northwest, Summit Healthcare REIT, Inc. purchased a 55 bed skilled nursing facility in Myrtle Point, Oregon for roughly $4.2 million. Summit Healthcare will lease the facility to Dakavia Management Corporation, and Dakavia will operate it as well. This arrangement should work well, since Dakavia has more than two decades of experience in senior housing and already operates five of Summit’s other properties.
Lastly, multiple records were just set in Utah with the recent sale of a senior housing community in Layton. Specifically, after a thorough selection process, Evans Senior Investments sold its Legacy Village of Layton community to an undisclosed buyer for $68 million. The $68 million purchase price is the highest ever for a senior housing community in Utah and, at $276,423 per unit, the per unit price also set a record in the state. With 108 independent living units, 24 memory care units, 74 assisted living units, and 40 skilled nursing and rehab units, Legacy Village is one of the larger communities in the area, and its revenue potential is significant because of this. In order to take advantage of the facility’s size and maximize profits, the buyer enlisted a regional operator to manage the property, and it is confident that it maintains skills and expertise that are necessary to run the community effectively and efficiently.
These acquisitions reflect the strong demand for senior housing assets. Such activity should continue for some time because of the industry’s favorable demographics and today’s low interest rate environment. Accordingly, providers and investors who are seeking capital to purchase senior living properties should contact the Chicago-based financing firm Cambridge Realty Capital to learn more about the different financing options that it offers for acquisitions, sale/leasebacks, joint ventures, and other purposes as well.