BETHESDA, MD-Extendicare Health Services recently finished refinancing 51 skilled nursing facilities for total proceeds of $381.8 million. Walker & Dunlop secured the financing--which took a year to complete as each property was refinanced separately—for the REIT via the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Besides its complexity, the deal is notable because it is one of the first REIT refinancings through HUD, Walker & Dunlop Senior Vice President and Head of the FHA Healthcare Group, Michael Vaughn, tells GlobeSt.com. The structure was unusual in that there were a lot of transactions and each loan had to be approved one at a time, he says. “Each of the loans stood on its own merits. It was also helpful that there was a master lease.”

The original financing was provided via CMBS and the transaction included coordinating the release of the collateral from the existing CMBS facility and finalizing the Master Lease and Accounts Receivable documentation. The skilled nursing facilities are located in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, West Virginia and Wisconsin. As is typical in these deals, W&D is the holder of the mortgages, HUD is providing the mortgage insurance and the loans are being securitized via Ginnie Mae.

The deal’s completion was announced on the same day a separate health care real estate transaction closed--the mammoth-sized $1.73-billion acquisition by HCP of 133 senior housing communities. It acquired the properties from a JV consisting of Emeritus Corp. and Blackstone Real Estate Partners VI.

With news of this deal, talk in the industry is turning to the growing consolidation in the health care space. Vaughn says there are still plenty of independent assets and smaller portfolios to be had. “It is still an industry with a lot of different players.”