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Investors Plan To Put More Money Into Healthcare

The I-word, inflation, is bad enough. But then there’s the R-word: recession. And some forecasters see the potential coming forward, according to the latest CNBC Fed Survey.

Not that it’s a given, but the trifecta of inflation, more hawkish Fed monetary policy, and issues coming out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have increased the bet to a 33% chance of one in the next 12 months.

That may be what a new CBRE survey picked up on. Distributed to “approximately 500 of healthcare real estate’s most influential healthcare real estate trusts (REITs), institutional healthcare investors, private capital investors, and developers throughout the United States” and responses coming from about a fifth of them, 85% believed that the healthcare real estate industry is “recession resistant.”

“Survey results suggest a very significant increase in capital allocated to healthcare real estate for 2022,” the report said. “In 2021, the total capital allocation provided by respondents in our survey was $10.9 billion, while actual transaction volume for 2021 ended at nearly $16 billion. This year, the total capital allocation from those unique firms who provided a figure (65 out of 86 firms) totaled $17.1 billion, which represents a 57% increase compared to 2021.”

This year, the firms that gave a capital allocation reported $17.1 billion going into 2022, a 57% increase. Given that, CBRE expects investors to allocate at least $25 billion in capital to the sector. Market caps are likely to drop with the capitol going in, and 96% of respondents expected cap rates on Class A on-campus to be below 6% this year, while 79% anticipate the average cap rate will drop below 5.5%.

“This can be ascribed to the ongoing increase in demand for high-quality healthcare real estate, the resiliency of healthcare real estate during the pandemic, and new funding sources actively exploring alternatives to traditional real estate products, such as office, industrial, multifamily and retail,” the report reads.

Similarly, the life science sector is also tremendously strong, with record level venture funding of $32.5 billion in 2021 and in 2022 40% of respondents thinking that life sciences properties, especially those housing biotech or pharma, should see a cap rate below 5%.

As might be expected from these numbers, a big majority—84%—plan to be net buyers of healthcare real estate, including all healthcare REITs and institutional investors that responded. Only 26% of current owners will be net sellers. With that much demand and low interest in dropping net ownership, that describes a coming challenge to obtain additional properties, meaning likely higher prices.

 

Source: GlobeSt.

Three Health Care Investment Trends For 2022

The healthcare sector was one of the beneficiaries of the pandemic, and the industry is rapidly growing.

As investors plan for 2022, Meridian CEO John Pollock is predicting three trends will drive activity healthcare real estate.

1. More Outpatient Facilities

The transition to outpatient facilities has been an ongoing trend over the last decade, and it accelerated during the pandemic.

“Services are migrating away from the acute care centers to more convenient outpatient centers” Pollock tells GlobeSt.com. “Ambulatory outpatient care facilities have been at the center of Meridian’s focus for years and we expect this trend to continue to accelerate and translate into more opportunities for investors, developers, and providers alike.”

2. Telehealth Gaining Momentum

Telehealth is the second major trend that Pollock sees gaining momentum this year.

“Everyone has read about the rapid adoption of telehealth during the pandemic. It certainly spiked in 2020, and while it has since leveled off, it is still an integral and effective means to deliver care,” Pollack says. “The physical manifestation of that trend is creating more flexible exam and telehealth rooms.”

The telehealth trend supports better patient care, especially as providers rush to build outpatient ambulatory facilities.

“We have seen an increasing need for outpatient ambulatory care centers either de novo or through renovations that require heavy lifting to meet the new care delivery models,” says Pollock. “A huge benefit of telehealth is providing greater access to care. During the pandemic, it provided a vital access point to care when physical appointments were not practical. Telehealth also allows patients in rural settings to have access to a specialist from the urban centers.”

3. A Focus On Behavioral Health

Finally, health care providers will increase focus on behavioral health.

“We are seeing numerous requirements,” says Pollock. “The stress, isolation and loss caused by the pandemic was the final straw and it is now widely known that behavioral health conditions impact one in four Americans.”

It isn’t only cultural changes that are driving activity in the behavioral space, but institutional investors are also backing these projects.

“Institutional investors have warmed up to having behavioral health tenants in their buildings and portfolios, and we have even seen cap rates move toward traditional medical office building valuations,” says Pollock. “It’s very exciting to be a part of creating more access to these much-needed services in our communities.”

 

Source: BenefitsPRO

Investors Are Flocking To MOB And HRE Space

Currently in the growing and highly visible medical office building (MOB) space, a couple of questions seem to be garnering most of the attention.

One of those is: Will the influx of new capital, including large amounts from deep-pocketed institutional investors and investment managers, slow down in the near future?

The other is: Will capitalization (cap) rates, or first-year expected returns, stop their unprecedented compression to historic lows, even amid rising inflation and potentially higher interest rates, anytime soon?

The answers seem to be “no” and “no,” according to a panel discussion that took place at BOMA International’s 2021 Medical Office Building + Healthcare Real Estate Conference held Nov. 1-3 at the Omni Dallas Hotel.

The session was titled “The Investor Flight Toward Healthcare Real Estate” and the discussion heavily focused on growing institutional investment in the MOB and HRE space, as well as soaring pricing and falling yields for the product type.

The panelists taking part in the session included two MOB sales brokers, two healthcare real estate (HRE) specialists with institutional investment firms that are somewhat new to the space, and a Wall Street research analyst who covers public companies. They were:

■ Moderator Ben Appel, executive managing director with the Healthcare Capital Markets group of Newmark Group Inc. (Nasdaq: NMRK);
Mindy Berman, senior managing director and head of the healthcare capital markets platform with Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (NYSE: JLL);
Vikram Malhotra, managing director and research leader for Mizuho Americas;
Pratik Patel, director with New York-based Wafra Inc., which in late 2020 formed a $550 million joint venture (JV) partnership with Welltower Inc. (NYSE: WELL) that entailed Wafra acquiring an 80 percent ownership in 24 MOBs; and
Jennifer Wong, VP of acquisitions with Boston-based AEW, which has formed partnerships with firms in the sector, including a recently formed JV with Nashville, Tenn.-based Montecito Medical Real Estate that plans to spend up to $1 billion in coming years on acquiring MOBs.

 

Source: HREI