Seniors Housing Market’s ‘It’ Factor
Investors can’t get enough of the seniors housing market and Bridge Investment Group Partners has the proof.
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor
Investors can’t get enough of the seniors housing market and Bridge Investment Group Partners L.L.C. has the proof. Bridge-IGP recently completed the raising of $735 million of equity capital for the acquisition of seniors housing and medical property assets through ROC Seniors Housing Fund Manager. The equity capital, when leveraged with debt, allows for buying power totaling $2.2 billion.
The seniors housing market is the picture of health these days, with the aging Baby Boomer population leading the way as the main demand driver. The contest for investor dollars is steep, but ROC Seniors has a leg up on the competition, J.P. Sletteland Jr., managing director, strategy and business development with Bridge-IGP, told Commercial Property Executive. “What differentiates Bridge-IGP / ROC Seniors Housing is a strong pre-seeded portfolio, robust pipeline, and best-in-class investment/asset management team focused on value-add / transitional assets,” Sletteland said.
Bridge-IGP launched ROC Seniors Housing in November 2013 for the purpose of acquiring value-add assets that, through capital investment and/or marketing, could be repositioned to create significant additional value. Investors took note immediately and interest only grew stronger. Commitments jumped from $300 million in September 2014, to the current total of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.
“Bridge-IGP / ROC Seniors Housing limited partners as well as new institutional investors become more and more comfortable with the investment and market opportunities in the second-half of 2014 / first half of 2015,” added Sletteland. “Despite demand, we turned investors away as we believed approximately $735 million of equity was appropriate to deploy over our projected investment period.”
Currently, ROC Seniors’ collection of assets consists of 39 premier properties that are either owned or under binding contract. “We have already deployed over 50 percent of the equity raised into an outstanding portfolio of assets,” Sletteland concluded.
