Wednesday Feature: Outlook for 2024

Happy Hump Day! I hope all readers, followers, and visitors had a great Christmas Holiday. This post will likely wrap-up 2023 for me as tomorrow, I begin a bit of travel to see some long-time friends and celebrate the New Year. I am not much for resolutions into the new year as I try to … Read more

Twofer Tuesday: Life Plan/CCRCs, Fitch Outlook (2024) and Rate Concession Report

Long title for a Tuesday. Two reports dropped within the last couple of days and into my email regarding CCRCs/ Life Plan communities and some interesting trends/outlooks. Yesterday (Dec 4), Fitch issued its 2024 outlook for Life Plan/CCRCs, reaffirming its 2023 outlook as “deteriorating”. The primary reason for the gloomy outlook is present and projected, … Read more

Friday Feature: Senior Living Credit/Borrowing Still, Very Soft

TGIF! This week has been very busy with lots of data and lots of economic news. We got a new report from the BLS on inflation. We got earnings reports from Home Depot, Target, and yesterday, Wal Mart indicating what we saw from the Conference Board – consumers are slowing their spending.  I called the … Read more

Wednesday Feature: CPI, Economy, 40 Days to Christmas

OK, the title is kind of funky, but these concepts do connect. Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index (inflation report) for October, 2023. Good news? Maybe. A mixed bag? Definitely. Headlines win the day, and politically spun, it’s fascinating to see which numbers resonate. The full report/release is here: cpi … Read more

Friday Feature: Senior Living Investment Outlook

TGIF! On a calendar year basis, we are into the home stretch for 2023. It’s generally about now that I start looking at how 2024 is shaping up. What trends are there to watch? What do markets look like now, socially and economically? What does policy and politics tell us about the year to come? … Read more

Friday (and Weekend) Feature: A Bit Tardy

Busy week and so, I got a tad behind. Lots of news to run through this weekend from health policy stuff (new MDS next week), to updated numbers on SNF staffing mandates, some new info. on the Jimmo case (ten years ago) and Medicare denials, and some economic data from yesterday and today (mixed bag … Read more

Fitch, Life Plan (CCRCs) and the Economy: Could Get Uglier

On Monday, Fitch (investment rating agency) dropped a non-rating commentary as an alert that should the economy hit a recession (I would argue not “should” but “when”), that Life Plan communities will encounter additional financial pressure. Recall that in December 2022, Fitch issued its outlook on the Life Plan/CCRC market, qualifying it as “deteriorating.” Per … Read more

Friday Feature: The Benefit of R&R

I’ve been rather busy lately and my wife’s side of the practice (compliance, litigation), very much so. Suffice to say, as the two prime partners and owners of H2 healthcare, we work collaboratively and support each other. In other words, her “busy” is mine too and vice-versa. So today, I’m setting aside for catch-up and … Read more

Friday Feature: GDP Report

Yesterday, the second quarter GDP report (economic activity) was released. This is the initial print from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It will see two more prints but the initial one is always the headline story. Revisions of late, tend to be down versus up (improvement). I eschew the headlines for the details as the … Read more