As the country’s health systems look to grow their ambulatory networks – which one well-known healthcare consulting firm says they must do in order to survive in today’s environment – the main property that can help them do so remains the tried-and-true medical office building (MOB).

As the start of higher interest rates have entered into 2018 economic data, Medical Office REIT share prices have pulled back implying their portfolio values have also fallen...

The bread-and-butter medical office building (MOB) deal continues to entail the sale of a single building for a price of less $20 million, often quite a bit less. Such deals, of course, do not typically satisfy the appetites of the sector’s largest investors, including private equity funds, the larger publicly traded REITs, and institutions, as well as foreign capital. Such investors prefer deals that provide immediate scale instead of having to accumulate a portfolio by making smaller, one-building acquisitions.

These new reports detail transaction activity for 3 types of investors – Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), Hospitals and Health Systems and Private Investors. Each of the 3 reports provides detail on volume trends, pricing, share data, as well as data for the most active investors and metro areas.

2017 witnessed record MOB sales and outsized portfolio sales, but a notable shift occurred in the hot money – a theme that dominates the landscape in early 2018.

MedCraft Healthcare Real Estate was the most active developer in 2017 with a total of 8 projects and 470,000 square feet started or completed. NexCore Group was the most active for project starts and HTA Development LLC was the most active for project completions.

Colliers-Houston provides updates about the Texas Medical Center, changes and growth regarding the numerous health systems, cutting-edge hospital design, new MOBs, growth of clinics' sizes, and notable healthcare property sales in Houston.

Prior to the start of 2018, several members of the Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) of Healthcare Real Estate Insights™ predicted that the sector would see some transactions in which health systems would buy medical office buildings (MOBs) that they are leasing from third-party owners.

Continuing focus on high medical office sales activity might lead one to wonder where all this activity is occurring. In 2017, more than 25% of sales volume was represented in only 5 metro areas. Who's leading the pack?

Transaction volumes have been steadily rising for the past few years. Revista began tracking property transactions in 2014 and volumes in that year were $8.9B for MOBs