Product Focus: MOB activity picking up?

BROKERS SAY THINGS ARE HAPPENING, STATS DON’T

By John Mugford

For the second straight quarter, sales volume nationwide for medical office building (MOB) remained in the tank – at least compared to what they were from 2005 to 2008.

According to statistics from New York-based Real Capital Analytics (RCA) Inc., which tracks commercial real estate statistics nationwide, including MOBs, the total sales volume for MOBs in the second quarter (Q2) 2009 was $189.68 million. That’s down 34 percent from Q1, when MOB sales totaled an adjusted figure of $289.2 million. Earlier this year, RCA reported total MOB sales volume for Q1 of $180 million.

However, RCA says its quarterly statistics can change after its initial report is published, as it often learns about transactions after the quarter has ended, or receives more details and price information about individual sales after publishing its initial quarterly report.

At the halfway point of 2009, the nationwide MOB sales volume totaled $478.9 million, which is down $79.7 percent from the first half of 2008. At the midway point of 2008, the MOB sales volume for the first half of the year was $2.36 billion.

The last time first-half MOB sales volume was as low as this year was in 2003, when first-half volume totaled $435 million. That year saw late-year rally, however, as volume totaled $945 million in Q4 for a yearly total volume of $1.6 billion.