BWE Investment Sales is expanding in the senior housing sector through the launch of a new investment platform headed up by a former JLL managing director..

BWE on Tuesday , announced the launch of the new platform, BWEIS Seniors. The platform is headed by Charles Bissell, who previously worked as managing director at JLL and has more than 30 years of industry experience overall.

The new platform will partner with the BWE seniors housing debt and structured finance teams in order to “offer a full suite” of capital market solutions for clients in the senior housing industry. The launch comes following the recent expansion of BWE Investment Sales which includes “regional hubs” and “national industry specialties” that align with the company.

The expansion will further allow BWE Investment Sales to better and more fully serve real estate owners, the company noted in a press release.

“Investment sales is a crucial part of a full-service capital markets platform, and our vision is to work collaboratively with the BWE seniors housing team to provide valuable advice to our clients, presenting them with multiple solutions to complex investment challenges,” Bissell said in the release.

The plan to add a senior housing platform has been on BWE Investment Service’s roadmap for some time now, according to the release, and the company is optimistic about the “wave of transaction volume coming.”

Before joining BWEIS Senior, Bissell worked as a managing director for the JLL Capital Marketing Group, and he has been involved in senior housing since 1995. In his current role he will be responsible for building a team of investment sales professionals to focus on the senior housing sector.

Senior living companies have struggled this year to ink new deals, with 25% fewer transactions in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same quarter in the year prior, according to LevinPro LTC data. Higher interest rates, trouble in the banking sector earlier in 2023 and general uncertainty are making deals harder to pencil out this year, though there is a hope for relief in 2024.