Healthcare real estate will continue to be a strong investment category in 2012 concludes an analysis by Jones Lang LaSalle, a financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate.
“While no asset class can be considered recession-proof, based on past performance and future projections, healthcare real estate is about as ‘recession-resistant’ as possible which makes it a preferred class today,” said Mindy Berman, Jones Lang LaSalle’s managing director, healthcare capital markets, in a statement.
[See also: Healthcare REIT market sees growth.]
Bolstering the solid outlook are the changes created by healthcare reform, said the firm’s analysts.
Reform continues to encourage merger and acquisition activity that results in “a lot of real estate baggage,” said Berman in the statement. That baggage means those interested in investing in healthcare-related real estate have a lot of investment options as those merged healthcare organizations seek to dispose of, monetize or sell/lease excess properties.
The development of outpatient facilities is part of the healthcare industry’s continued strides toward accountable care. “As we see accountable care embraced, we are seeing outpatient and community-based facility activity,” said Shawn Janus, Jones Lang LaSalle’s managing director, healthcare development programs, in the company’s statement. “That market is coming back, and the design and funding of these facilities is evolving.”
A dark spot on the bright future of healthcare real estate is the aging of facilities, noted Jones Lang LaSalle analysts.
“Many institutions have had to ask – and will continue to have to evaluate – whether they are investing enough to at least maintain the average age,” said Scot Latimer, the firm’s managing director of strategic planning capabilities, in the statement. “Unfortunately, the answer is no, which has created this looming overhang. We had hoped that with the investments of the last decade these problems would mitigate, but the steep decline in investment the last three years has us right back where we were 10 years ago, and the issue is not going away.”
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