Acquisitions are rising, debt is available and capital wants to enter the sector
By John B. Mugford
Although medical outpatient buildings (MOBs) sales volume has slowed during the past couple of years, owning the product type is proving to be a financially worthwhile endeavor.
Being in such a position – especially for those who own high-quality, in-demand assets – should remain a good place to be through the end of 2026 and beyond.
“When you look at the big picture in 2026, where we are today, the outpatient medical sector is very healthy,” said Ryan Crowley, executive VP and chief investment officer with Nashville-based Healthcare Realty Trust (NYSE: HR). “The supply and demand dynamics in our space have frankly never been stronger. We have the demographic and secular tailwinds that continue to benefit our sector, which leads to more tenant demand than we’ve seen in a long time, and we have the tightest supply of new developments coming online than we’ve seen in a whole cycle, almost a decade.
“And those factors, of course, are leading to occupancy rates that are near, or even exceeding, right around 93 percent, which is accelerating sector-wide rental rate growth.
“All of this benefits all of us as incumbent owners and operators, and, for 2026 and perhaps further into the future, will likely mean robust net operating income (NOI) growth. And that’s going to continue to attract more and more capital, institutional capital, to our space.”
Several healthcare real estate (HRE) professionals echoed Mr. Crowley’s sentiments during the recent meeting of the HREI™ Editorial Advisory Board. HREI held this year’s annual board gathering at Healthcare Realty’s headquarters office in Nashville, Tenn., with HREI and its board members being the guests of the publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT).
The annual meeting typically includes an “on-the-record” segment during which board members, who represent many of the HRE sector’s top firms across a variety of disciplines, share their opinions and insights on the current market conditions and what might lie ahead.
On May 27, we wrote an article focusing on the HREI board members’ thoughts on the current and future state of the development market, which they, for the most part, said they believe is on the road to recovery as health systems and providers look to grow their footprints through the building of new outpatient facilities to bring their services to new and growing markets.
For this article, we are focusing on their other comments concerning the overall MOB market, with plenty of discussion about acquisitions activity, as well as other topics.
For example,
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