NIC Analytics released the 4Q 2022 NIC Lending Trends Report today. The quarterly report, available complimentary to NIC constituents, includes data trends over six years for senior housing and nursing care construction loans, mini-perm/bridge loans, and permanent loans, from 3Q 2016 through 4Q 2022.
After a sharp decline in the third quarter 2022, the issuance of mini-perm/bridge debt for senior housing bounced back in fourth quarter 2022 to levels seen earlier in the year. The use of mini-perms and bridge debt reflects difficulties in sourcing permanent debt, given the challenges in the overall capital markets and lending environment. Specifically, the jump in mini-perm/bridge loans for senior housing suggests that some borrowers are opting for mini-perm loans over permanent loans for some deals, likely due to elevated interest rates, inflation, and moderately low occupancy rates in general.
Closed new permanent loan volumes increased to levels seen earlier in 2022 but remained well below those levels seen in 2018 and 2019. For the sample of lenders in the Lending Trends Report, new permanent loans closed for nursing care was 38% less than that of senior housing.
Separately, senior housing new construction loan closings inched up slightly in the fourth quarter of 2022 but were generally weak by historic standards. Only two other periods in the time series were as low — the third quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2021. The issuance of construction debt for nursing care was almost negligible, in line with its pattern of limited debt financing for new nursing care property construction since NIC began collecting the data in 2016. In general, there has been limited development of new nursing care properties for the past several years.
The total balance of delinquent loans for senior housing inched higher in fourth quarter 2022, but was well below the high levels seen in 2020. Delinquencies as a share of total loans increased to 1.3% for senior housing from 1.2% in the third quarter. For nursing care, the delinquency rate slipped to 1.1%. Note that loans in forbearance are reported in the delinquent loan data for some debt providers. Notably, some foreclosures were reported for the sample in fourth quarter 2022 for senior housing.
As background, the Fed raised interest rates by 1.25 percentage points (pps) to 4.25%-4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2022 (+0.75pps in November 2022 and +0.5pps in December 2022). Subsequently, the annual inflation rate in the U.S. slowed for a sixth straight month to 6.5% in December 2022, down 2.6pps from the highs seen in June 2022 (9.1%). Meanwhile, senior housing construction starts remained relatively low in the fourth quarter of 2022, and the number of senior housing units under construction in the 31 NIC MAP Primary Markets remained near its lowest level since 2015, according to data released by NIC MAP Vision.
Download the complimentary 4Q 2022 NIC Lending Trends Report for full details on these and other trends in senior housing and skilled nursing lending.
Note: These data are not to be interpreted as a census of all senior housing and skilled nursing lending activity in the U.S., but rather reflect lending activity from participants included in the survey sample only.
The 1Q2023 NIC Lending Trends Report is scheduled for release in mid-August 2023.
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If you would like to participate and contribute your data, please contact us at analytics@nic.org. As a courtesy for providing data, data contributors receive this report early before publication on the website. The information provided as part of the survey will be kept strictly confidential. Individual answers will be combined with the answers of all other respondents. Data acquired from this survey will only be reported in the aggregate, and therefore, the resulting aggregated data will not be attributed to you or your company upon distribution.