Strawberry Fields REIT

Strawberry Fields REIT

Moishe Gubin formed Strawberry Fields REIT in 2014 in South Bend, Indiana, after nearly two decades acquiring and operating skilled-nursing facilities himself. Rather than running the facilities directly, Gubin structured the company as a triple-net lease REIT that buys properties from a network of regional operators, then leases them back under long-term agreements. The tenants — many of whom Gubin knew from his prior operating days — remain responsible for staffing, insurance, maintenance, property taxes, and regulatory compliance, while Strawberry Fields collects contractual rent with scheduled 2–3% annual increases. The portfolio spans more than 110 healthcare properties across 11 states, with heavy concentration in the Midwest and Southeast — particularly Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Nearly all assets are skilled-nursing facilities or long-term acute-care hospitals; a smaller share includes assisted-living and memory-care communities. Tenants are typically small to mid-sized operators with local market knowledge who lack the capital to own their real estate. The leases are structured as absolute triple-net, meaning the tenant bears nearly all operating costs. The business model produces a high proportion of reimbursable revenue from Medicare and Medicaid since the underlying operators derive roughly 55–80% of their patient-day revenue from government programs. Confirmed tenants include affiliates of Reliant Healthcare Group and other regionally focused operators disclosed in SEC filings (per SEC filings, 2023). Gubin led the firm through a public listing on the NYSE American in February 2022 via a direct listing without a capital raise, a rare path for a micro-cap REIT. The firm does not appear to manage outside capital — it operates as a publicly traded, internally managed equity REIT rather than a single-family office or private fund. The leadership circle remains small, with Chairman and CEO Moishe Gubin and CFO Jeffrey Bajtner as the principal named officers. Gubin's prior private company, also called Strawberry Fields, developed the operator relationships that seeded the REIT portfolio — he contributed $80 million in assets as founding capital. In May 2024, the firm acquired four skilled-nursing facilities in Illinois for $32 million, expanding its footprint with an existing tenant and signaling continued deal flow in the fragmented nursing-home real estate market (per SEC filings, 2024). What separates Strawberry Fields REIT structurally is its deliberate focus on facilities with high Medicaid-mix payer profiles — a segment many institutional REITs and private buyers avoid because of per-diem rate sensitivity. By concentrating in states with favorable reimbursement frameworks and cultivating a distinct tenant base of regional operators, Gubin has built a public vehicle where most competitors are either private sale-leaseback lenders or large diversified healthcare REITs that favor private-pay seniors-housing. The small size and Midwestern concentration also mean the firm operates below the radar of the largest institutional acquirers, allowing it to price acquisitions on cap rates that are hard to replicate at scale.