Healthpeak Properties Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: FFO guidance was raised by $0.02 to $1.73–$1.77 per share, supported by improved same-store NOI expectations in lab and senior housing. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 4.7x, with $4.1 billion of available liquidity.
  • Positive Sentiment: Outpatient medical leasing remained strong, with 1.2 million square feet executed, 5% cash re-leasing spreads, 80% tenant retention and occupancy rising to 90.7%. Management expects internal growth in the portfolio to accelerate in 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: The life science portfolio showed improving demand, with occupancy increasing to 78.5% from 77% at year-end 2025 and 480,000 square feet under letters of intent. Management cited stronger biotech funding, IPO activity, M&A and FDA approvals, while acknowledging that Boston’s supply overhang and lease timing remain challenges.
  • Positive Sentiment: Senior housing subsidiary Janus Living delivered 260 basis points of same-store occupancy growth and 19% NOI growth, while Healthpeak’s senior housing portfolio is expected to nearly double this year. The company also completed a Brookfield outpatient medical recapitalization that generated $1 billion of proceeds while retaining 51% ownership and operating control.
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Earnings Conference Call
Healthpeak Properties Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Healthpeak Properties, Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key, followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then one again. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andrew Johns, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Andrew Johns
Andrew Johns
SVP of Investor Relations at Healthpeak Properties

Welcome. Today's conference call contains certain forward-looking statements. Although we believe the expectations reflected on any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. A discussion of risk and risk factors is included in our press release and detailed in our filings with the SEC. We do not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. Certain non-GAAP measures will be discussed on this call. In an Form 8-K that we filed with the SEC yesterday, we have reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in accordance with regulatory requirements. The exhibit is also available on our website at healthpeak.com. I'll now turn the call over to our President, Chief Executive Officer, Scott Brinker.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Thanks, A.J., and welcome to Healthpeak's Second Quarter Earnings Call. WE CARE is the acronym we use for our core values, with the W representing our winning mindset. That's easy to do when demand exceeds supply and fundamentals are in your favor. Everyone's happy and looks really smart. It's a lot harder to do when supply exceeds demand, but that's exactly when a winning mindset is needed the most. As the life science pendulum finally starts to swing back in our favor, I want to say thank you to the team here who live up to our core values and maintained a winning mindset these past four years. It absolutely paid off, and we're stronger because of it. The downturn also provided a window to redefine our company and reset the competitive landscape. We were bold and strategic, including a $5 billion merger and a $1 billion IPO.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Today, we're a bigger and better company because of those decisive actions. Even more important, we added capabilities, including strategic new hires and internalizing property management in much of our renewal leasing. Now we're in the process of rolling out our agentic operating platform. This modern version of Healthpeak is an on-the-ground operator who generates superior results with our people and platform. We're already seeing a payoff from the strategy. In the past two quarters, two of the largest and most respected real estate investors in the world chose Healthpeak as their operating partner. Neither Blackstone nor Brookfield had any meaningful prior exposure to the outpatient medical sector. Both joint ventures allow us to maintain control of strategic buildings and tenant relationships while providing an alternative source of equity capital. We're excited to grow both of those partnerships in the future. Our balance sheet is stronger than it's ever been.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Leverage is below 5x, and we have flexibility to pursue a number of capital allocation alternatives. We're funding highly pre-leased outpatient development projects sourced directly through our relationships, such as the project in Atlanta that we announced last evening. We can also do outpatient acquisitions in our joint ventures with Blackstone and Brookfield, where the deal structures generate additional returns to Healthpeak as the operating partner. We also see a unique opportunity in life science to create value via acquisition. Life science has been a development game for the past decade, but for the next few years it will be an acquisition game, and we have the platform and balance sheet to capitalize on the opportunity. We can also do stock buybacks, if and when the stock price is well below intrinsic value.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Today, that's less attractive, but we did buy back $100 million in April at a 10+% FFO yield when the stock was less than $17 per share. Finally, we could maintain leverage below our 5.5x Long-term target, given the cost of debt today isn't much lower than the fair market cap rate of our real estate. This is not the right environment to have elevated leverage. With our strong balance sheet, we can afford to be patient and utilize our dry powder when it's most impactful. A few comments on operating results and the underlying environment. The strong fundamentals in outpatient medical that we spoke to with the merger announcement three years ago continue to be validated. Last quarter, we had +5% cash re-leasing spreads and modest TIs that continue to be materially lower than peers.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Total occupancy increased 20 basis points sequentially, and our leasing pipeline suggests that an internal growth in the outpatient portfolio will accelerate in 2027. In life science, public capital raising last quarter was the highest since 2Q 2021. The IPO market is healthy but measured, with 13 later-stage companies raising more than $5 billion in proceeds in the first half of the year. This week alone, we could see five biotechs price IPOs. M&A has been record-breaking, with more than $250 billion of announcements in the last three quarters, which recycles capital back into the ecosystem. Most important, the science continues to advance, year-to-date FDA approvals are above the five-year trend. The building blocks are in place for occupancy in the sector to inflect, led by Healthpeak.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

In senior housing, we'll provide all the details on the Janus Living call, but happy to report that same-store portfolio had 260 basis points of occupancy growth and 19% NOI growth. We have an active and accretive acquisition pipeline sourced through our deep relationships in the sector, including $1.8 billion closed since January 1. Our senior housing portfolio will essentially double in size this year, and the number of operating partners will increase from two to more than 10. We're on pace to accomplish a three-year business plan in 12 months. Janus Living's success is also driving earnings growth at Healthpeak, given our unique and creative deal structure that aligns the interests of both companies. I'll turn it to Kelvin.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Thank you, Scott. We continue to execute our plan and have made tremendous progress year to date in our leasing and capital allocation objectives. I'll take a moment on our outpatient medical recapitalization with Brookfield. We're pleased to complete this strategic partnership as the proceeds raised exceed our capital recycling target for the year in a single transaction. With the leadership from our investments team, we've demonstrated our ability to execute scale transactions and partner with leading institutional investment managers. From a structure perspective, Healthpeak will retain a 51% ownership interest in a 5.6 million square foot outpatient medical portfolio and raise $1 billion of cash proceeds. We will utilize our best in class platform and expertise to provide asset management, property management, and leasing services, maintaining day-to-day control of the real estate and preserving our client relationships.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Economically, the transaction represents a trailing cash cap rate of 5.9%, and after seven years, we'll have a finite number of call rights to repurchase the non-controlling interest at a price sufficient to provide Brookfield a 6.5% unlevered rate of return. Most importantly, this partnership expands our access to alternative sources of equity capital with a framework we can replicate to pursue growth opportunities across our business. Now turning to the second quarter results. We reported FFOs adjusted of $0.46 per share and net debt to EBITDA of 4.7x. Now starting with outpatient medical, we had another strong quarter of leasing as we continued to see demand for our real estate. For the quarter, we executed 1.2 million square feet of leases, including approximately 327,000 sq ft of new leasing, bringing our year to date total to 2.3 million square feet.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

We achieved 80% tenant retention and cash re-leasing spreads of 5%, which is in line with our average of 5% over the last 10 quarters and above our pre-Physicians Realty Trust merger averages of 2%-3%. We ended the quarter with total occupancy up 20 basis points sequentially to 90.7%. Since July 1st, we have an additional 204,000 sq ft of lease executions and approximately 882,000 sq ft under LOI. I'd like to highlight our partnership with Northside in Atlanta, as it's proven to be a source of strategic growth for our outpatient portfolio. We have now entered into another development agreement for the ground up construction of a new outpatient medical project to support their expansion in Atlanta, where we have number one market share. This will be the fifth development project with Northside, totaling approximately 565,000 sq ft.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Moving to lab, we continue to make progress towards net absorption and total occupancy capture through year end. For the quarter, we executed 381,000 sq ft of leases, of which approximately 60% was new leasing and 30% on vacant space. We ended the quarter with total occupancy increasing by 80 basis points sequentially to 78.5%. That is 140 basis points increase since year end 2025. Since July, we've entered into approximately 20,000 sq ft of leases and have another 480,000 sq ft under LOI. As a result of this activity, we anticipate a modest improvement in total occupancy by year end from where we stand as of June 30th. These results reflect our focus on driving leasing volumes at our properties, which I would like to highlight by sharing our progress in Torrey Pines, the premier lab submarket in San Diego.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

The activity we've seen in Torrey Pines is a testament to our team on the ground and our high quality portfolio as tenants are seeking core assets and core locations with experienced landlords. This is allowing us to capture an outsized share of the deal volume. When accounting for executed leases and LOIs, our leased percentage in the sub-market increases to 97% from approximately 65% at year end 2025. Ending with senior housing, Healthpeak's ownership interest in Janus Living is now 74%, which represents approximately $6.5 billion of equity value. For the second quarter, Janus Living delivered total revenue growth of 45%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 34%, and ended the period with cash on the balance sheet and no outstanding debt. Now moving to the balance sheet. We had significant activity during the second quarter into the third quarter against a backdrop of elevated borrowing costs.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

We have taken prudent steps to manage our debt maturities and maintain flexibility in accessing the capital market. Through year end, we now expect to generate $1.9 billion of gross proceeds from capital recycling initiatives. To date, we have completed $1 billion of acquisitions and buybacks. Through August 4th, we have repaid $900 million of debt, including $650 million of senior unsecured notes in July. We ended the second quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 4.7x and $4.1 billion of available liquidity. Quickly ending with guidance before we open up for Q&A. We raised our FFO's adjusted guidance range by $0.02 to a $1.73 to a $1.77 per share.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

The rate was driven by a 75 basis points increase in total same store NOI at the midpoint, which includes a 200 basis points increase in both lab and senior housing and the recognition of the low market interest amortization related to the $400 million seller note repayment. To recap, we've made significant progress across the business through the first half of the year, and our balance sheet has never been stronger. We have ample capacity available to deploy into new investments as we find opportunities. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question is from the line of Ronald Kamdem from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Hey, great. I just want to ask about the lab portfolio. Look like occupancy picked up, as you mentioned, sequentially, and still expecting sort of improvement in the back half of the year. I guess I'm just curious, as you're sort of putting it all together with the environment, with the leasing pipeline, when do you think you'll have line of sight to be able to see sort of same store inflect to the positive? Thanks.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Hey, Ron. This is Kelvin. I'll start there. I think what's most important that we've been really focused on is capturing more than our share of the demand in the market and driving net absorption through the portfolio, and we've been able to do that through the first half of the year. We started with 77% occupancy coming into the year, and now we're at 78.5% total occupancy, which I think is a testament to the team doing a really phenomenal job on the ground to capture that demand. It'll certainly translate. We improved our same store guidance for lab by 200 basis points at the midpoint, and that's certainly trending in the right direction. That's driven by the improvement in occupancy and just the overall health that we're seeing in the sector.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

I think it's probably a little too soon to predict exactly which quarter we'll see that inflection, but we're certainly trending in the right direction.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Hey, Ron, I just want to add, same store is less relevant. The real key is total occupancy and moving NOI in that segment higher. That's what generates earnings growth and ultimately share price. That's all we talk about internally. That's the number we're reporting on. We report same store because we have to. That's not the number we focus on. The key is we're growing total occupancy, and that's going to grow total NOI and ultimately earnings. We're making progress already in the first half of this year.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Juan Sanabria from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Juan Sanabria
Juan Sanabria
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Hi, good morning, thanks for the time. I appreciate how succinct the prepared remarks were. Just on the lab and the competitive environment for leasing. You obviously have different players out there with different motivations, highly motivated to push up leasing as you guys are. Just curious if anything has changed with regards to the rate environment, free rent, build out costs, et cetera. Maybe as part of that, if you can comment on any changes in the size of tenants out there, small, medium, large, and where the improvements have been.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Hey, Juan, this is Kelvin. I'll start there. What I'd say is the pipeline continues to be fairly robust. We've seen, since September of 2025, strong demand just continue in the portfolio. We've had a 2 million square foot leasing pipeline, we've been capturing that demand and translating it into executed LOIs and leases. As of the earnings call, we had 500,000 sq ft under LOI, which is within our 2 million square feet of pipeline. I'd say that the characteristics of that pipeline hasn't changed dramatically. It's disproportionately wet lab space. It's biotech tenants that are really attracted to core assets and core locations. We're certainly a recipient of all of the positive momentum we've seen in the biotech sector. From a rates and concession standpoint, I'd say that the rates continue to be in line generally with our portfolio averages.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Free rent has trended to be one month per year, up to two months per year of lease term. That's been fairly consistent. It's use dependent. It's a condition of the quality of the space, how much capital needs to be invested that's really driving the economics around these deals. Each situation is fairly unique. Most importantly, our portfolio can accommodate a wide variety of uses, and we've seen the benefit of that in our results. We've had fairly low capital deployed to capture that occupancy, just given the quality of our spaces for second generation leases. In certain instances where we have redevelopments, CapEx could be more elevated as we have to improve spaces that have been occupied for multiple decades by a single tenant. I think the pipeline continues to be strong, and the team's doing a phenomenal job converting it.

Scott Bohn
Scott Bohn
Chief Development Officer and Head of Lab at Healthpeak Properties

Hey, Juan, this is Scott Bohn. The only thing I'd add on that too is from a size perspective, we have seen more in that 25,000 sq ft-75,000 sq ft range, both in the executions as well as the LOI and pipeline bucket. I think that size range is normalizing as we see the funding environment continue to improve.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of John Kilichowski from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

John Kilichowski
John Kilichowski
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Hi, good morning. Scott, in the opening remarks, you talked about the outlook for lab getting more attractive here. I'm curious, are we getting back into an environment where the distressed lab opportunity is looking more attractive to you, and what's the opportunity set today there?

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah. The building blocks for the sector recovery are definitely there, and we're starting to translate that into leasing pipeline and leasing execution, growing occupancy. Things are definitely getting better. Obviously, there was some work that needed to be done with vacancy, so it's not going to happen overnight, but the trajectory is clearly positive. I think the incumbents like Healthpeak are definitely capturing market share. We're focused on core markets, buildings we want to own long term, and particularly situations where we think our platform can bring something to the table and lease up a building that's otherwise not doing very well. I think we've got the team and the balance sheet and the credibility to do all those things. The pipeline is active. It may end up not doing anything. We'll see. These deals take time to play out.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Sometimes they're quite complicated, lenders involved, et cetera. We're working on a number of situations. We obviously did the one at Gateway over the new year. It's doing phenomenally well. Scott, Natalia, and the team are leasing it up. Signed something like 125,000 ft of leases or LOIs since that purchase, and active discussions on another 200,000 ft or so. Really making good progress on that at a great basis. Hopefully it's situations like that we're focused on core sub-market in a situation where we can really add value with our platform and balance sheet and relationships. We're working on a number of them, but no promises that any of them get done. I think we'll end up being a consolidator over the next 24 months, which should prove to be a great time to grow the portfolio.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Austin Wurschmidt from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Kelvin, I think you had said that about 30% of the new leasing in the second quarter was for vacant space. I'm just wondering if you can give us some sense about the difference between leased versus occupied today, and how that's trended versus last quarter? What the commencement schedule looks like across those leases that have been signed and are expected to take occupancy over the next six months or so? Thanks.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah. Thanks, Austin, for that question. Without giving very specific guidance in terms of occupancy in the forward quarters, what I can simply say is that we have commencements in the back half of the year that exceed our expirations. We continue to expect a modest improvement in total occupancy for the lab portfolio. We've talked about the pipeline. It continues to be healthy. These leases have the potential to commence starting in 2026 that are within our LOI bucket. I wouldn't say it's a substantial share of that 500,000 sq ft that we mentioned, but we do have the potential for some of our recent executions to benefit 2026 and into 2027. We continue to focus on just capturing demand.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

We're only midway through the year, there's plenty of time, no pressure on the team here to go out there and further improve the conversion of that pipeline that'll drive incremental occupancy into 2027.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Seth Bergey from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It sounds like the kind of activity in the market has certainly improved and you're seeing more tenants. I'm just wondering, how has that conversion timeline kind of changed, just given the amount of available lab space? Are you seeing a pickup between kind of when tenants come to the market and getting across that finish line of signing a lease?

Scott Bohn
Scott Bohn
Chief Development Officer and Head of Lab at Healthpeak Properties

Sure, Seth. Scott Bohn. We're still in an environment where folks are a little cautious, right? There's still a little bit of scar tissue out there. I think people and groups are taking their time and doing the diligence they need to do, which they should in a lease process. From initial tour to execution, depending on the deal, it could be three months, it could be nine months, right? There's a lot of factors at play, size, organization, things like that. It's been relatively consistent, I would say, over the past 12 months.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Connor Mitchell from UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Connor Mitchell
Connor Mitchell
Analyst at UBS

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. You guys mentioned some CapEx that's required for second generation leasing or spaces that have been occupied and now turning over. Can you just expand on that a bit and maybe how much CapEx we should expect over the near or medium term, just based on the known move-outs and the leasing pipeline?

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Hey, Connor, this is Kelvin. I'll start there. What I would say is, generally speaking, as you look through the available space in our portfolio, we've done a great job over the years of investing capital and preparing for these second generation leases. We've done a great job keeping capital costs low to obtain the occupancy that we've been able to achieve. I think on our redevelopment assets, in certain instances, you'll see a more elevated capital need to get spaces that were occupied for multiple decades by a single tenant to be prepared for multi-tenant occupancy or to be modernized for the current user's requirements.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Those spaces will require some elevated capital. Generally speaking, with our availabilities, we're looking at pretty modest capital costs across the board to get tenants in. We don't have much space in our portfolio that needs to be built out from shell. I think that's a huge advantage, both from a timing standpoint of getting a tenant to occupancy, but also from a capital spend standpoint. We're certainly taking advantage of the quality of our space right now to be able to capture the demand.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah. If you're looking for numbers too, I'd just say around 10% for renewals, probably 20%, 25% for new leasing. It's probably just a good rule of thumb. Some higher, some lower, but just as an average, it's about what it's been over the last decade.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Rich Anderson at Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rich Anderson
Rich Anderson
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Thanks, and good morning, and very nice quarter, folks. Last quarter, you got it to 100 basis point uptick for the year in life science. You've achieved that and then some so far. You have not made a commitment going forward necessarily on what that number will look like. I can appreciate it's a lumpy business and so on. I guess the question is 100 basis points up, despite being 150 basis points up for the first half, is that still in the range of possible? Meaning like you could have some volatility in terms of timing of leasing chunky assets that are expiring, so on, or is 100 basis points up for the full year? Meaning some give back in the second half is probably off the table at this point? Thanks.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah, Rich. Maybe I'll try to answer that simplistically. When we had articulated 100 basis points, that was off of year-end 2025, total occupancy at 77%. We've already exceeded that. I think for the balance of the year, I mentioned a few times that we have commencements that'll exceed our expirations. Every quarter is unique in terms of the timing of when those vacates occur. There could be some lumpiness, but we've anticipated modest improvement in total occupancy through year-end from here. We've already captured the 100 basis points that we had articulated previously, and there's still room to capture some incremental occupancy through the balance of the year.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rich Hightower at Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rich Hightower
Rich Hightower
Analyst at Barclays

Hey, good morning, guys. I guess, shifting to outpatient for a minute. I noticed that, I guess, cash spreads decelerated a little bit in the second quarter versus the first quarter. Maybe just help us understand a window into that and where would you estimate sort of the mark to market opportunity in outpatient? I guess thirdly, are you looking at growing that portfolio, maybe even via the JVs? Thanks.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Rich. Mark and the team are doing a great job taking advantage of solid fundamentals in that business. The re-leasing spreads, I don't know, they might have been down 20 basis points from last quarter, but they're up, like, 50% from the last decade at +5%. That's a phenomenal result in that business. Even better, we're doing it with very modest TIs, and we're getting 3% escalators on essentially all the leasing that's being done. The re-leasing spread's only half the story. To couple that with low TIs and really strong escalators, just a phenomenal result. We're actually really pleased with it.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Farrell Granath from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Farrell Granath
Farrell Granath
Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you, and good morning. Staying on the MOB topic, I was curious if you can expand on your appetite for potentially doing more JVs, especially in this recap structure? Also, if you could just touch on what led you to do this Brookfield transaction, especially keeping the call option on the go forward?

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah. Adam and the team did a fantastic job with Brookfield. That's a great organization to work with. We've done some things with them over the years. Happy to have them as a partner going forward. They obviously have a huge balance sheet and appetite to grow, as does Blackstone. Really two amazing partners to add to our portfolio over the last two quarters, and I would expect us to do more with each. The deal structures are a little different. We're a 51% owner with Brookfield. We're a 20% owner with Blackstone. They each have their own unique things that they're trying to pursue. The common thread is they're looking to partner with Healthpeak as their GP in this business. We do have a fantastic existing portfolio that we can recap at what we think are strong prices. Obviously, they're getting the returns that they need.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

From our perspective, these are strong prices. With Brookfield, that buyback option, when this team joined Healthpeak, I don't know, eight years ago, we inherited contracts that the tenants had a lot of purchase options that were in the money. I think we've created a purchase option here that will be in the money for Healthpeak. After seven years, obviously, we'll make that decision at the time, but the 6.5% unlevered return with the quality of the portfolio, we think that's certainly achievable. A great price up front from our perspective, but also the ability to acquire assets in the future at a strong price, maintain the hospital relationships. Control of the decision making. It's really a phenomenal outcome, and just puts our balance sheet in the best position it's ever been.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

With leverage below five times, we're seeing a lot of opportunity across all three business segments that we're excited to take advantage of. We'll be patient and make sure that when we actually use the dry powder, that it's as impactful as possible.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Carroll at RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Yeah, thanks. I know, Scott, you touched on this throughout the call, I wanted to circle back on the lab acquisition opportunities. What markets are most interesting, and should we think about this as more of a fee simple type acquisition, or are you still interested in the structured finance type deals that you guys have done in the past?

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah. We'll focus on the core markets where we have a competitive advantage, people on the ground that can actually make a difference. We're already capturing more than our fair share of the leasing. I think that will be a common thread in anything that we do, is we can bring our platform to the table and create value in addition to our balance sheet. In terms of deal structure, we did some loans, I don't know, two years ago, because owners hadn't really capitulated. The pricing didn't make sense from our perspective, I think we're getting closer to the point that pricing has come down. Gateway's a good example where fee simple made more sense. I'd say the majority of what we're looking at today is fee simple.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

There may be unique situations where we'd still look to a loan structure with an option to buy. Pathway to ownership in any event. We're not here to make loans.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Stroyeck from Green Street. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Michael Stroyeck
Michael Stroyeck
Analyst at Green Street

Thanks, good morning. Can you maybe just provide some color on which lab markets are seeing the strongest demand today? Maybe related to that, where is pricing power holding up the best across those markets, if there is differentiation?

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Yeah, maybe I'll start, Michael. Thanks for the question. I might ask Scott to jump in here as well. We're certainly seeing the demand the strongest in the Bay Area. No surprise that the biotech ecosystem in that market just continues to thrive. We're positioning our portfolio to be able to capture that demand. San Diego's also been tremendously productive. We talked about Torrey Pines and what we've seen there, and a good amount of that demand has been homegrown. These are existing clients that have had successful outcomes in their businesses and are seeking more space. That's the story that you like to hear across the sector, and that's happened quite frequently in the Torrey submarket that's driven those outcomes that we talked about. Getting from high 60s to high 90s lease percentage is pretty phenomenal in a short amount of time.

Kelvin Moses
Kelvin Moses
CFO at Healthpeak Properties

Great execution from our team, but also just the strength of what we're seeing in that market. Boston's probably the most challenged, just given the supply overhang across that marketplace. I think where we're positioned in West Cambridge and Lexington, we have an opportunity to continue to capture demand that's kind of seeking that kind of suburban, urban product, and we've done a phenomenal job there. We're also very well leased in that market. With regards to our available spaces, we've been chasing a subset of the demand. There's other submarkets that are proving to become alternatives outside of biotech in life sciences. As the supply overhang gets managed, that should probably improve over time. Scott, I don't know if you'd add anything specifically across-

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

I think in Boston, one thing I would note is, in the second quarter, we saw 80% of the market activity that we saw in all of 2025. Right? You're certainly seeing signs of life there. As Kelvin mentioned, there's the biggest supply, demand imbalance there, a lot to work through. Our relative position there is important to remember, too. If you look at the Route 128 West market, overall it's 30% vacant, but our assets are 11% vacant. Right? It really comes down to what is the quality of your assets within that particular submarket. Your question on pricing power. We talk about it a lot, our portfolio scale, especially in markets like the Bay Area or in Torrey, allow us to see a lot of deals that aren't widely marketed.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

Whether those are just relationships we have with tenants within the portfolio or otherwise, or with the VCs. Many of those are groups who are growing within the portfolio. We tend to have a little bit more pricing power on deals like that than you would on a widely marketed deal.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Mike Mueller at JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Mike Mueller
Mike Mueller
Analyst at JPMorgan

Yeah. Hi. Scott, you touched on outpatient spreads, was there anything out of the ordinary driving the weaker lab rent spreads in the quarter? Was it just spreads bouncing around, trying to drive occupancy or something else?

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

It's just a unique situation. We've had very positive spreads the last couple of years, ±5%, 6%, 7%. In most quarters, there's always going to be an outlier quarter, up or down. This was one where it was a little bit down. We had a lease in Boston that the team did a great job renewing at actually really strong terms. It's a 10-year lease, not much TIs. The rent was a little bit lower and ended up being a bit competitive, the team did a great job winning that deal. Still a great outcome, it was really just the one big lease that drove that outcome. I think Kelvin spoke earlier to the mark-to-market across the whole portfolio. It's plus or minus in line.

Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker
President and CEO at Healthpeak Properties

There are obviously going to be outliers on either side of that, depending on specific building or when that lease was signed. Nothing to read into this specific quarter, though.

Operator

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Andrew Johns
      Andrew Johns
      SVP of Investor Relations
    • Scott Brinker
      Scott Brinker
      President and CEO
    • Kelvin Moses
      Kelvin Moses
      CFO
    • Scott Bohn
      Scott Bohn
      Chief Development Officer and Head of Lab
Analysts
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