As Invesque continues its push to adjust its portfolio to be predominantly senior housing, Chairman and CEO Scott White said that the company is seeing positive momentum and expects to see continued growth in the senior living sector in the second half of the year.
“I would love to be 100% seniors housing by year end,” he said.
As previously reported, the real estate investment trust has completed several sales this year to streamline and simplify its portfolio. Year to date, the REIT has sold $193 million in assets, with the majority of those sales occurring during and after the second quarter.
In April, Invesque sold two senior housing communities in New York for $19.2 million and closed on the $52 million sale of four transitional care skilled nursing facilities in Texas to LTC Properties, which leased them to Ignite Medical Resorts. In June, the company closed on the sale of its interests in two age-restricted communities in Wheatfield, NY, for $10 million.
In July, after the quarter ended, the company closed on the sale of substantially all of its medical office buildings in Canada for $94.3 million. Last month, it also closed on the sale of a medical office building in Orlando, FL, for $9.85 million.
White said that the company has one remaining medical office building in Canada and three in the United States. Invesque, he added, is in active discussions to sell the properties and said that it is “highly likely” that the company will exit the medical office building sector within the next 12 months.
“These dispositions have been completed at favorable pricing, with the goal of simplifying our company and focusing on private-pay seniors housing assets operated by our core group of operating partners,” White said, adding that its operating and management company, Commonwealth Senior Living, hit pre-pandemic occupancy levels recently.
Operators in the REIT’s senior housing operating portfolio have implemented a 4.3% rate increase as of March over March 2021. White said that he expects that most operators will roll out “significant” rate increases in the first quarter of next year.
