Healthpeak Properties is buying lab buildings that are mostly empty. The Denver-based health care REIT said it has acquired or agreed to acquire four life science buildings for about $233 million, with a blended occupancy of 41% across the three transactions. The purchases came alongside third-quarter results in which the company raised its full-year earnings guidance and its senior housing business grew same-store NOI 25.9%.
The details are in Healthpeak’s third-quarter 2026 earnings release, dated Nov. 2, 2026 and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Healthpeak (NYSE: DOC) owns outpatient medical, lab and senior housing properties, and the quarter showed those three businesses heading in different directions.
Healthpeak’s bet on lab vacancy
Lab was the weakest of the three segments in the quarter. Same-store adjusted NOI in the segment fell 0.7% from a year earlier. The company said lab occupancy rose 130 basis points from the second quarter and 270 basis points since the end of 2025, and it signed 480,000 square feet of lab leases in the quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to 1.0 million.
The acquisitions are an attempt to buy into that recovery at a low entry point. In San Diego’s Sorrento Mesa submarket, Healthpeak acquired the senior construction loan on HQ Point and then the remaining equity interest, for a combined $105 million. The deal closed Sept. 30, 2026. HQ Point is a two-building, 236,000-square-foot lab campus that is 29% occupied.
Two more purchases are under contract. One is a 145,000-square-foot building in South San Francisco for about $92 million, which is 49% occupied. The other is the remaining 51% interest in 100 Acorn Park Drive in Cambridge, Mass., a 129,000-square-foot building that is 53% occupied, for about $36 million. Healthpeak put the three deals’ current cash yield at about 5% and said it expects a stabilized cash yield of about 9% to 10% once the space is leased.
On our reading, the gap between today’s yield and the stabilized target is the bet. If tenants fill the space, Healthpeak’s returns rise toward that target. If lab demand stays weak, the company will be carrying more vacant space.
Senior housing and outpatient medical results
Senior housing is now held through Janus Living (NYSE: JAN), the separately listed subsidiary in which Healthpeak owned 69% at Sept. 30, or 214.7 million shares and operating partnership units. Janus Living’s third-quarter revenue rose 78% to $268 million and adjusted EBITDAre rose 101% to $105 million. Same-store adjusted NOI rose 25.9% and margins widened 360 basis points. Janus closed $1.75 billion of acquisitions in the quarter and about $370 million more through Oct. 30, with roughly $82 million under binding agreements.
Outpatient medical, at 54.4% of same-store NOI the largest segment, grew same-store NOI 3.1%. Healthpeak executed 846,000 square feet of new and renewal outpatient leases in the quarter and 3.2 million square feet so far this year. In October it bought Westway One, a 146,000-square-foot Class A medical training facility in Houston, for $38 million. The building is fully leased to affiliates of HCA Healthcare with 11 years left on the lease, at an initial cap rate of about 7.4%.
The release also restates the deal that reshaped the outpatient portfolio in July. Healthpeak contributed 86 outpatient medical properties, valued at about $2.1 billion, to a joint venture with affiliates of Brookfield Asset Management and received about $1.025 billion for selling a 49% interest.
Earnings and the raised guidance
Total same-store adjusted NOI rose 3.6%. Healthpeak earned $0.02 a diluted share, compared with a loss of $0.17 a year earlier. Nareit FFO was $0.43 a share and FFO as adjusted was $0.44, down from $0.45 and $0.46. Revenue rose to $820.9 million from $705.9 million.
The company raised its 2026 FFO as adjusted guidance to $1.76 to $1.78 a share, from $1.73 to $1.77 in August, a 2-cent increase at the midpoint. It lifted its forecast for total same-store cash NOI growth to 0.5% to 2.0%, from 0% to 1.5%. Earnings-per-share guidance fell to $0.39 to $0.41 from $0.48 to $0.52, which the company attributed to depreciation and amortization from Janus Living’s senior housing acquisitions. Healthpeak said that change does not affect FFO as adjusted.
Healthpeak also entered into a new $500 million unsecured delayed-draw term loan in October, priced at SOFR plus 80 basis points and maturing in October 2030. The loan was undrawn at closing. Net debt was 4.7 times adjusted EBITDAre, and liquidity was $3.8 billion as of Oct. 30. The monthly dividend is $0.10167 a share, or $1.22 annualized.
After quarter-end, Healthpeak said 643,000 square feet of lab space and 1.3 million square feet of outpatient space were executed or under letter of intent after quarter-end. In August, the company raised guidance on a 19.2% senior housing gain, and Janus Living has since expanded its revolving credit line to $1.25 billion to keep buying. More REIT coverage is in RealtyWire’s commercial real estate section.
