MINNETONKA, MN-For professionals involved in selling, or investing in, medical office buildings, learning where capitalization rates are how – and where they're heading -- is important. Knowing such information can help buyers and sellers prepare for transactions involving income-producing buildings, as the cap rate is typically used to set the return on an investment by using a property's net operating income, value, and, in some instances, other factors. As most people in the business know, the lower the cap rate the higher the demand for such properties, meaning returns will also be lower.

When it comes to MOBs, however, investors are often willing to accept lower cap rates in return for a steady income stream.

As noted, nailing down where cap rates are at any given time, or where they'll be heading in the future, is important information for both investors and sellers. For all of 2012, real estate research firm Real Capital Analytics (RCA) found that the average cap rate for MOBs, which includes on- and off-campus as well as MOBs of varying quality levels, was 7.9 percent.