Healthcare is among the new hot investment assets, following the shake up from the pandemic. This year, healthcare pricing is nearing record levels, and cap rates are trending down, according to Scott Briggs, senior director and partner at Stan Johnson Company. Briggs will speak on the topic at the upcoming GlobeSt.com Net Lease conference on October 28, 2021.

"During the pandemic, with 1031 exchanges already underway and dry powder at all-time highs, that affinity became necessity as many net lease tenants sought rent relief from landlords as governments initiated public shutdowns relief—a move that sent investors and lenders reeling at the potential of what was to come as the unknown played out," Briggs tells GlobeSt.com. "This dynamic convergence of needs caused demand for healthcare product to surge which sent prices even higher given the certainty of continued rental payments afforded by most healthcare users as net lease tenants."

The accelerated demand was true of many trends during the pandemic. In the net lease space, industrial is the asset that was really set on fire. "The pandemic accelerated already prevalent trends in the net lease space," Briggs says. "Pre-pandemic, net lease investors exhibited an evidenced affinity for net lease product that was well-aligned with technological advances by market disrupters such as Amazon and other e-commerce providers or net lease product that was well-insulated from macroeconomic movements."