Two Cap Rates In One Press Release
On September 28, 2026, National Healthcare Properties (Nasdaq: NHP) announced a definitive agreement to sell 40 outpatient medical facilities for approximately $531 million. The company said the price is a 6.9% nominal cap rate on trailing twelve-month in-place cash NOI, and a 6.5% economic cap rate after adjusting for recurring capital expenditures and closing adjustments. It expects about $511 million of cash proceeds and a fourth-quarter 2026 close (National Healthcare Properties press release, September 28, 2026).
The same release said the company has signed purchase and sale agreements or non-binding letters of intent for approximately $244 million of senior housing operating portfolio (SHOP) acquisitions. Those comprise 724 primarily assisted living and memory care units, at estimated weighted average cap rates of about 7.2% in year one and 8.4% in year three (NHP, September 28, 2026).
Put side by side, the numbers suggest a simple swap: sell an asset at 6.9%, buy another at 7.2%, and pick up 30 basis points. On the economic figure the spread is 70 basis points (computed). That reading is wrong, and the reason matters to anyone pricing an assisted living building against a REIT bid right now.
The Two Numbers Measure Different Things
The 6.9% on the medical office side is backward-looking. It is trailing twelve months of in-place cash NOI, on buildings the company has owned and operated. The buyer is paying for income that already exists.
The 7.2% on the senior housing side is forward-looking. NHP's release defines its pipeline cap rates as the underwritten cash NOI the company "aims to achieve", some of which is "based on preliminary information provided by sellers and certain assumptions applied by the Company", divided by the purchase price (NHP, September 28, 2026). That is a business plan, not a trailing yield.
So the real comparison is 6.9% of NOI that has happened against 7.2% of NOI that is expected to happen. The 8.4% year-three figure is further out still. On our arithmetic, going from 7.2% to 8.4% on a fixed purchase price means underwritten NOI rising about 16.7% over two years (computed from NHP's figures). A trailing 6.9% has no equivalent growth built in, and the medical office portfolio showed why: its same store cash NOI fell 0.4% year over year in the second quarter (NHP Q2 2026 results, August 5, 2026).
Why A REIT Would Take That Trade
NHP's own operating numbers explain it. In the second quarter of 2026, its SHOP segment reported same store cash NOI growth of 20.1% year over year, same store average occupancy of 84.1% (up 1.4%), RevPOR up 5.9%, and a same store cash NOI margin of 22.4%, up 2.3% (NHP Q2 2026 results, August 5, 2026).
This is not one company's story. Welltower reported 20.5% same store NOI growth in its seniors housing operating portfolio for the second quarter (Welltower, Second Quarter 2026 Results, July 27, 2026). When a segment is compounding NOI at 20% and the alternative is flat to down, selling the flat asset at a lower cap rate is a rational trade. The buyer is not paying for a yield. It is paying for a growth rate.
NHP's CEO Michael Anderson said the transactions "complete our strategic evolution into a pure-play SHOP platform" (NHP, September 28, 2026). Counting the previously announced sale of 86 medical office buildings for approximately $528 million, and a non-binding LOI on its final four for $11 million, the company expects to exit the segment entirely (NHP, September 28, 2026; September 10, 2026).
The Pipeline Is Getting More Expensive
Compare September's pipeline with what NHP was buying three months earlier. On July 7, 2026, it announced about $197 million of SHOP acquisitions adding 882 assisted living and 51 memory care units, forecast at year-one and year-three weighted average yields of about 7.8% and 9.7% (NHP press release, July 7, 2026).
Three things moved between July and September (all computed from NHP's disclosures):
Year-one yield fell by 60 basis points, from 7.8% to 7.2%.
The underwritten growth runway shortened. The July batch assumed about 190 basis points of yield gain from year one to year three, roughly 24.4% NOI growth. The September pipeline assumes 120 basis points, or about 16.7%.
Price per unit rose. $197 million across 933 units is about $211,000 per unit. $244 million across 724 units is about $337,000 per unit. The mix of buildings is not disclosed for either batch, so part of that gap is quality and location rather than market movement. Even so, a buyer is paying more per unit, for less in-place yield, and underwriting less growth.
That combination is what a maturing bid looks like. Early in a recovery a buyer gets both a higher entry yield and a steeper growth curve. Later on, the entry yield compresses and the growth assumption flattens, because sellers have seen the same operating numbers the buyer has.
One Data Point The Other Way
The same company's filings show how wide the spread between assets is. In May 2026, NHP agreed to sell one non-core SHOP community in California for approximately $42 million, a 1.7% trailing twelve-month yield (NHP Q2 2026 results, August 5, 2026). A buyer paying that price is buying a turnaround, not income.
A 1.7% trailing yield and a 7.2% forward yield sit in the same REIT's senior housing book in the same year. "The SHOP cap rate" is not a single market number. It depends on the building, its occupancy and who runs it.
The Balance Sheet Context
NHP said that once the announced dispositions, capital markets transactions and closed SHOP acquisitions are counted, it expects net debt to further adjusted EBITDA of about 0x on second-quarter 2026 financials. Cash would roughly equal total debt, which consists mainly of $300 million of unsecured term loans (NHP, September 28, 2026).
A buyer with that balance sheet does not need acquisition debt to close. For a seller, that means less financing contingency risk. It also means the buyer can wait out a seller who is pricing off last quarter's growth rate.
What An Owner Should Take From This
Ask which cap rate you are being quoted. A REIT buyer's headline number for a senior housing acquisition is usually year-one underwritten NOI. Your broker's comp set may be trailing NOI. They are not interchangeable. Adjust before you compare.
Price the growth assumption, not just the entry yield. If a buyer is at 7.2% going in and 8.4% by year three, it has underwritten about 17% NOI growth. Ask whether your building's census and rate history support that. If they do, the growth is yours to argue for at the table.
Watch the gap between year one and year three. In NHP's disclosures the underwritten growth runway narrowed from July to September. If that keeps happening across buyers, the premium for stabilized, high-occupancy product has probably peaked, and the next leg of pricing will come from buildings with occupancy upside left.
The Bottom Line
NHP is selling medical office buildings at a 6.9% trailing cap rate to buy assisted living and memory care at a 7.2% forward cap rate. The trade only works if senior housing NOI keeps growing the way the company's second-quarter numbers say it has been. For an owner, the lesson is not that REITs will pay 7.2%. The lesson is that REITs are paying for year three, and the seller who can document year three is the one who gets paid for it.
Disclaimer: This report is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Data sourced from Bureau of Reclamation, NIC MAP, American Lung Association, and other public institutional sources. Crawford Commercial Group Real Estate Group. April 2026.