What Asset Class Is Starting to Sizzle?
Our population is aging. That means demand for seniors housing (and early bird restaurant reservations) is spiking. Fundamentals across Texas are great. That’s why Bisnow is excited to be hosting a Seniors Housing Summit in Houston next Tuesday. It's worth the drive (just don't get behind a senior citizen on I-45.) Here's some headlines we'll be talking about:
1) Booming Need for Assisted Living
Lancaster Pollard managing director for M&A in senior housing Steve Graham tells us there’s not enough supply to meet demand. Dallas ranks eighth in the US for assisted living construction and fifth for freestanding memory care construction. A current project is Tradition-Prestonwood at 5555 Arapaho Rd (catty-corner from the original community at 15250 Prestonwood Blvd. and Arapaho). It’s adding 75 assisted living and 38 memory care apartments to complement existing independent living.
2) More Heads and Beds
There’s higher occupancy than ever. Dallas ranks first in the nation for independent living facilities and has expansion in the works, Steve says. Some examples: Amish Gupta Ventures plans to develop a new senior living facility on the northeast corner of the service road of Hwy 121 and Creek Valley Boulevard in Carrollton. The 120k SF will include 135 units and should start later this year. And Silverstone Healthcare Co (along with L&B Realty Advisors and the Dow Chemical Pension Fund) have broken ground (above) on the 120-unit Class-A HarborChase of Plano assisted living and memory care community on Preston Road at Hwy 121 in Plano.
3) Investment Explosion
Besides shrinking vacancies and steady fundamentals through the recession, investors and capital providers are drawn to senior housing’s lower cost of capital, Steve says. Newcastle Investment Corp acquired six senior housing communities (1,265 beds) across Texas for $186M. Newcastle invested more than $700M of equity in the past 24 months to acquire 95 senior housing properties with more than 11,900 beds, totaling more than $1.8B in assets. Fun factoid: When he’s not financing deals, Steve likes to play the guitar (70s music in particular), and he dabbles in photography. He started with sports while his kids were in high school.
