National Health Investors is preparing to offload 32 skilled nursing facilities and three independent living facilities in its effort to shift investment toward private payer healthcare assets.
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The REIT has agreed to sell the properties for $560M to National Healthcare Corp., NHI announced Wednesday.
NHC is a healthcare operator that has been leasing the assets, which are located across Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, according to NHI’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The full list of properties is included in the purchase and sale agreement executed Tuesday. The sale is expected to close July 1.
NHI positioned the sale as part of its strategy to increase the share of its portfolio made up of facilities where patients pay the fees themselves.
“[The] shift in concentration enhances NHI’s overall value proposition due to valuation disparity between private pay senior housing and SNF cap rates,” it said in an investor presentation.
The disposition will reduce the REIT’s skilled nursing exposure to 12.2% of its total investment, it said, and 16.5% of its annualized net operating income.
Meanwhile, its senior housing and senior housing operating portfolio will increase to 83.8% of its total investment and 78.6% of its annualized adjusted NOI.
In an investor presentation, the REIT said it will use the sale proceeds to pay down debt — the balance of a $700M revolving credit facility, a $125M term loan and $100M in private placement notes — and for future investments.
In its release, NHI called its private pay senior housing investment pipeline “robust.”
It has already invested $105.5M in a senior housing operating portfolio this year and has a $488M investment pipeline, excluding portfolio deals.
The $392.4M it invested in 2025 was the most since 2016, the REIT said, and it expects investment this year to surpass last year’s volume.
NHC has been a lessee of NHI properties since 1991, when NHI was formed. The buyer and seller are both based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
As of the end of 2025, NHI managed 215 properties across 33 states. NHC operates 80 skilled nursing facilities, 26 assisted living communities, nine independent living communities, three behavioral health hospitals, 34 home care agencies and 33 hospice agencies.
