NEW YORK CITY-American Realty Capital Healthcare Trust has agreed to acquire three healthcare facilities in Texas and Wisconsin, at a total cost of $46.5 million. The announcement of the acquisitions comes as the non-traded REIT continues to take steps toward its $1.5 billion initial public offering.

The properties include two facilities in Texas, currently net leased to physician investors and private equity firms or medical operating companies. Additionally, ARC Healthcare will acquire a clinical outpatient building in Wisconsin currently leased to the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation.

“This is a great opportunity to acquire a brand new facility that has already generated higher patient volumes than originally anticipated from the referring hospitals,” ARC Healthcare chief investment officer Todd Jensen said in a release of one of the Texas facilities, the 60-bed Reliant Rehabilitation Center. “The Affordable Care Act will prohibit Medicare reimbursements to physician groups that own hospitals after 2010. This has created a meaningful barrier to entry for existing physician owned hospitals and this facility.”

Jensen tells GlobeSt.com that the acquisitions reflect ARC Healthcare’s continued strategy. “We’re looking to buy healthcare facilities all over the country, from coast to coast,” he says. “We tend to focus on newer assets that have long-term leases--which we typically define as ideally ten years or more--with strong operators in desirable markets.”

Hunter Beebe, managing principal at Healthcare Real Estate Capital, sees such investments as attractive for their stability, and tells GlobeSt.com that healthcare reform should only add to growth in the sector. “It’s a sector where we’re seeing a lot of growth as far as development--also over time you can increase your cash flows at the asset level,” Beebe says. “Because of that stability and that growth you’re seeing more and more institutional capital pursuing it.”

ARC Healthcare is expected to close on the two Texas facilities by the third quarter of 2011. The acquisition of the UWMF building is expected to close upon lease commencement and rent payment from UWMF.

Beebe sees continued stability as investors, both nationally and internationally, pursue healthcare real estate. “It’s a very stable sector,” he says. “We don’t see any real impetus for changes that would negatively impact the sector.”