Features

ATLANTA — Seniors housing operators have been grappling the past 18 months with how to maintain their properties and keep occupancy high while also protecting their staff and residents, who are the most vulnerable population for infections and death from the COVID-19 outbreak. With the rise of the Delta variant in recent weeks, owners and operators are having to make tough decisions to care for their residents, although now they have built some muscle memory on how to operate effectively amid the pandemic. “We are better at dealing with COVID-19 now than before,” said Joe Jasmon, CEO and managing partner of American Healthcare Management. Jasmon added that alleviating the fear of COVID-19 and the Delta variant is a big part of an operator’s job, and bringing residents into their social programs is a major point of emphasis, even if it can only be done virtually. “There’s been a huge insurgence of Zoom calls,” said Jasmon. “Before it was once in a blue moon, and it would be a son or daughter who lived in Belize or somewhere. Now the entire family and friends are calling in. We have to cultivate that activity and encourage it.” Jasmon’s comments came during the …

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Riverside Place

DALLAS — Industry professionals believe the commercial real estate values for industrial, office and suburban multifamily properties across the United States are expected to return to pre-pandemic levels or remain stable, hinting at a potential full recovery for the rest of 2021, according to a CBRE Group Inc. survey released on Aug. 31. CBRE’s survey looked at capitalization rates for stabilized assets and investment sentiment on market conditions. Capitalization rates measure a property’s value by dividing its net operating income by its sale price and a lower cap rate generally shows a higher value. In the survey, investors predicted cap rate movement will vary across different property types for the second half of 2021. For example, cap rates for industrial and multifamily properties are expected to compress in most markets, while the cap rates for office, retail and hotel properties are expected to stay steady. The survey also found that investors were willing to purchase industrial and multifamily properties at a premium or higher price than other property types. Additionally, investors looked mainly for small to moderate pricing discounts for office properties, and moderate to large discounts for retail properties and hotels. More than 75 percent of real estate investors …

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Xero-Ipad

By Jordan Cooper, director of verticals, Xero It’s difficult to guess anything about the housing and rental property markets of tomorrow given the conditions of today. Month after month of fluctuating prices, demand and availability have made renting a delicate dance for landlords and tenants alike. A recent IBISWorld report also pointed to an expected decrease in revenue for the larger apartment rental industry through 2021, but it’s not time to hit the panic button just yet. There are, in fact, a multitude of ways by which landlords and property managers can make their businesses steadier, more profitable and more beneficial to tenants — as well as to themselves. The first option — hiring outside help — creates the least work for owners, though it may not be the right addition to every landlord’s toolkit. In an industry with occasionally fickle financial situations, landlords can lean on the assistance of accountant or bookkeepers or seek counsel from financial advisors. Unless an owner already has the bookkeeping know-how, he or she is probably missing out on tax savings and seeing suboptimal returns on real estate investments. A qualified accountant can step in to keep the owner abreast of any and all …

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seniors housing

ATLANTA — The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic made everyone question the future, and for investors and owners in the seniors housing business sector, things were rocky. The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care reported the occupancy rate in seniors housing facilities decreased 680 basis points in 2020 to record lows. In 2021, there has been a renewed confidence in the economy as people return to working in an office and many Americans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Additionally, occupancy rates in seniors housing properties have continued to rise. Now that things seem to be getting marginally better, the question many investors may be asking themselves is if they should buy, sell or hold assets in the current market? At the InterFace Seniors Housing Southeast conference in Atlanta, Ga. on Wednesday, Aug. 18, a group of industry-related leaders discussed the tips and tricks to survive in today’s market, as well as their predictions for the seniors housing sector in the future, during the “Investment Panel.” In a discussion lead by Marcus Van Ameringen, vice president of business development at 12 Oaks Senior Living, many of the investors in the panel mentioned the importance of making deals with …

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ATLANTA — Driven by the desire of a healthy lifestyle, two areas that senior living developers are currently focusing on are the fitness center and outdoor spaces, according to Scott Gensler, vice president of business development with Erickson Senior Living. “Every time I look at a plan, the fitness center gets bigger and bigger and bigger,” said Gensler. “Then we open it, and it’s still not big enough.” Not only is the fitness center becoming larger, but it’s also becoming more of a prominent feature in Erickson’s continuing care retirement communities. Additionally, the outdoor spaces have gone from a secondary focus to a primary emphasis. As Gensler put it, having healthy residents is a win-win situation. Gensler’s comments came during “The Development Outlook” panel at the eighth annual InterFace Seniors Housing Southeast conference, which took place at Atlanta’s Westin Buckhead on Wednesday, Aug. 18 and drew 250 registrants. Joining Gensler on the panel were Michael Hartman, principal of Capitol Seniors Housing’s active adult platform; Alan Moise, chief investment officer of Thrive; and Janet Meyer, principal with BCT Design Group. David Kliewer, director with Grandbridge Real Estate Capital, moderated the discussion. Another development trend today is multi-function space, which increases efficiencies. …

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Walker & Dunlop Employment Multifamily

The Roaring ’20s and the Great Wealth Transfer The United States is well on a path of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown that began in March 2020. More than 60 percent of the U.S. population has now received at least one dose of the vaccine, and more than half are fully vaccinated. Those figures increase significantly by age, particularly for the 65+ population[1]. The economy is booming this year — it is estimated to have grown by 7.8 percent[2] in the second quarter following 6.4 percent growth in the first quarter of 2021. Unemployment remains low at 5.9 percent in June due to 7.9 million jobs created in the past year. Retail sales are up by 23 percent year-over-year.[3] Even the battered restaurant industry has recovered, with sales again surpassing grocery sales as of April 2021. Pandemic-induced disruptions to labor and trade finally began showing in inflation figures. Even excluding the more volatile food and energy sectors, inflation soared from 1.6 percent in March to 4.5 percent in June, the highest pace since 1991. However, expectations are that the price pressure is a temporary adjustment as the economy recovers. Core inflation is expected to end the year at around 2.2 …

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Rosewood-Bakersfield-California

By Taylor Williams ATLANTA — Even before the pandemic struck the United States in early 2020, rising labor costs were putting downward pressure on margins for seniors housing owners and operators. The public health and economic crises stemming from COVID-19 have only amplified the problem, say seniors housing professionals. In an industry where renters overwhelmingly belong to one of the most COVID-19-susceptible demographics, seniors housing operators are now wrestling with the question of whether to require staffers to get vaccinated. At the same time, they are battling widespread wage increases brought on by a labor shortage compounded by the steady flow of federal unemployment benefits. The net result is that both third-party operators and owner-operators of seniors housing properties — from independent living to skilled nursing — are seeing their costs rise. Simultaneously, these groups are also struggling to recoup occupancies and revenues lost to COVID-19. And while labor is not the only operating expense on the rise within the seniors housing space, it’s a unique line item in the sense that it has dual external forces acting upon it. This realization was not lost on a “power panel” of executives who own and operate seniors housing properties and who …

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By Sudha Reddy, Haven Realty Capital Single-family rentals have taken off in various areas across the country. But they’re boiling in the Southeast. The strength in the Southeast shouldn’t be a surprise as the region has enjoyed substantial employment and population growth over the past decade — well before COVID-19 hit last year. In 2018, the Southeast led other regions in net inflow, gaining around 959,000 new residents from different areas of the United States and around the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This strong growth showed up in cities and states throughout the region. Among states, Florida led the way, with 566,476 people moving from another state. Of the cities with a population of 50,000 or more, the Southeast had 10 of the top 15 fastest-growing large U.S. cities between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While the region was flourishing before COVID-19, the pandemic accelerated its population gains and spotlighted them. This migration has created a fertile climate for single-family rental builders and investors. Despite the intense interest, investors have been able to find many great opportunities in the region over the past year with even more properties coming in the pipeline. Moving …

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Northstar-Georgetown

By Taylor Williams As a concept, the term “active adult” supports the notion that age is just a number. As an evolving subcategory of seniors housing, active adult is a property type that means different things to different people. For that reason, designers and builders of this asset class face the unique challenge of visualizing and delivering communities that appeal to a broad range of renter profiles. Effective, consistent branding is one of the biggest challenges within the active adult sector, which is very much in its infancy relative to other commercial property types. As such, it’s critical that these properties, from their ambiances to their amenity packages, have a sense of versatility, a feel of a community in which 30- and 60-year-olds would feel equally at home. The ways and means through which that wide-ranging appeal can be achieved accounted for much of the discussion among a panel of architects, designers and a builder who spoke at the inaugural InterFace Active Adult conference on Aug. 4. Held at the Westin Galleria hotel in Dallas and hosted by Seniors Housing Business and the InterFace Conference Group, two business units of Atlanta-based France Media, the event drew more than 300 attendees …

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Quarton Walker Dunlop bank lender

The third quarter of 2020 was the beginning of a significant rebound for capital markets in commercial real estate. After banks and other lenders slowed their activity during the pandemic, lenders and equity investors regained their momentum — particularly in multifamily and industrial — a trend that has continued through the third quarter of 2021. It’s a good time to be a borrower, explains Mark Strauss, managing director of capital markets, and Rob Quarton, senior director of capital markets, with Walker & Dunlop’s Irvine, California, office. Vigorous Lending Markets Currently, Quarton explains, “Banks are really competitive. Debt funds are also aggressive — their funding mechanisms, like collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), have come back strong. Further, insurance companies are under allocated to real estate, which increases their annual volume targets and desire to win more business. Consumers have been purchasing more life insurance policies and insurance in general post pandemic, which provides dry powder for insurance companies to invest. In general, lending markets are very robust today, with ample options for lenders up and down the capital stack.” “Lenders have yearly production quotas, and I don’t think any of them hit their quotas last year,” adds Strauss. “This caused an overhang of …

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