A weekly running sum of medical office volume through April 2020 reveals that volume is slowing but that overall, total volume is still running ahead of 2019. Through week 18 (4/26/20 to 5/2/20) $3.1B worth of medical office buildings (MOBs) had traded hands. This is ahead of the pace in 2019 ($2.4B as of week 18) but behind 2018 which saw $3.7B worth of MOBs trade hands through week 18.
While volume is running ahead of last year it is clear volume is slowing. During the past 4 weeks, MOB transaction volume has been averaging just $100M per week in 2020. This is running on average 15% lower than volume witnessed in 2019 and 41% lower than the past 4 weeks volume in 2018.
Further, as we look towards May, while we are still calculating numbers for 2020, we know that volume kicked upwards in mid-May of 2019 with Welltower’s $1B+ closing of the CNL portfolio. So it is likely that YTD volume in 2020 will fall below the comparable YTD pace of 2019.
Stay tuned as we will continue to monitor this metric.
