After 35 years of growth, when assets gained an average of 17 percent a year, Health Care REIT Inc. is ready to settle down.

The health-care real-estate investment trust headquartered in One SeaGate in downtown Toledo recently paid its 137th straight quarterly dividend, a handsome 62 cents. That equals $2.48 annually, a strong payout for a stock trading at about $38.

The company owns 426 assisted-living facilities, nursing homes, and specialty-care units in 378 states but doesn't operate them. Its revenues were $251 million last year and its assets are $2.7 billion, 14 times as much as 15 years ago. It ranks as one of the premier companies in the REIT industry, which has outperformed the general stock market for five straight years.

But now, with interest rates heading up and with real estate getting pricey, "it's getting to be a tough time to make investments," said George Chapman, chairman and chief executive officer.

The Toledo firm will slow its rate of investing and weed out less productive sites it owns, the company chief said. "We will go where opportunities are," he said.

For the time being, Health Care REIT's leader is willing to bide his time, even though the firm's stock has recently been selling a couple of dollars below its 52-week high of $39.20.

Even without a lot of growth on the near-term horizon, the company has gotten high praise from stock pickers recently. For example, Motley Fool.com named the Toledo firm as a "favorite monster stock" and was one of Standard & Poor's two picks in the health-care REIT field.

One of the company's big attractions is its high dividend, typical of the REIT industry. The firm expects to continue, if not increase, its shareholder payout, the CEO said.

Several analysts who follow the real-estate investment-trust industry think that's fine, even though the local firm took an $18 million accounting hit in the second quarter, resulting in a rare quarterly loss, for "debt extinguishment" involving facilities it sold.

"We continue to view [the firm's] dividend as secure and adequately covered by projected earnings," John Sheehan, an analyst with A.G. Edwards & Co. in St. Louis, wrote in a client advisory. Mr. Sheehan has a "buy" rating on the stock.

Analysts generally approve of Health Care REIT's strategy of slowing acquisitions. Philip Martin, with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. in Denver, said the Toledo firm can turn a "difficult buyers' market" into an opportunity to make selective acquisitions or to get more involved in specialty hospitals. He also has the stock as a "buy."

The company was founded in 1970 in Lima as Health Care Fund by Frederic Wolfe and Bruce Thompson, who moved it to Toledo in 1986.

It was said to be the first real-estate invest trust devoted solely to health-care properties.

For years, the firm's stock was traded on the American Stock Exchange, but it has been on the New York Stock Exchange since 1992, under the ticker symbol HCN. Mr. Wolfe also founded, in 1981, Health Care & Retirement Corp., now known as Manor Care Inc.

Over the years, Health Care REIT has put numerous stock issues before the investing public, and it also has borrowed billions of dollars.

Since 2002, the firm has raised $1.5 billion in capital to invest in its properties - the largest concentrations of which are in Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio.

And it more than doubled its assets since the beginning of 2002.

Management keeps tabs on its properties through a database. The majority of the company's facility operators have master leases, which allow the owner to move quickly if necessary to another operator, Mr. Chapman said.

"We demand performance," he said. "We're pretty serious."

Twenty-three of its 51 operators were signed up in the last three years, he said.

"I think the reality in our business is that active management is our 'home run,' " he added.

The company, which holds an investment-grade rating on its debt, had no trouble financing its growth so far. It recently closed a deal for $500 million in notes at about 5.9 percent.

"We have plenty of capital," said Mr. Chapman. "We're not going to raise money just to raise money." However, he said opportune deals could turn up that could send the firm back into the capital market.

For now, the attractive dividend keeps investors interested.

"Today, REITs are so mainstream, it's incredible," he said.

Contact Homer Brickey at: homerbrickey@theblade.com or 419-724-6129.

First Published September 11, 2005, 3:04 p.m.