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Is it Wise to Retain Healthpeak Properties Stock in Your Portfolio?

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Healthpeak Properties, Inc. (DOC - Free Report) is well-poised to benefit from its diversified and top-quality healthcare real estate assets in the high barrier-to-entry markets of the United States. Solid demand for lab assets amid the increasing need for drug innovation and development is likely to drive its lab portfolio’s growth. Its continuing care retirement community (CCRC) portfolio is poised to gain from the rise in senior citizens’ healthcare expenditure. A healthy balance sheet position augurs well.

However, competition from the industry players is a key concern for the company. Risks associated with rising construction costs and a substantial debt burden add to its woes.

What’s Supporting DOC Stock?

The increasing life expectancy of the U.S. population and biopharma drug development growth opportunities have promoted the lab real estate market fundamentals and led to a rise in demand for such assets. Also, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning is likely to increase the probability of success in drug research and lower the timeline for development. This is expected to lead to a rise in the allocation of healthcare spending by healthcare research institutes in the coming years. Amid these industry tailwinds, Healthpeak is likely to grow.

With an expected rise in the senior citizens’ population and healthcare expenditures in the years ahead, Healthpeak’s CCRC portfolio, which includes independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing units, has strong upside potential.

Healthpeak is making portfolio-repositioning efforts to focus on lab, outpatient medical and CCRC assets. As part of such efforts, the company recycled capital through non-core dispositions of SHOP and triple-net leased assets to acquire and fund the development of lab and outpatient medical assets in high-barrier-to-entry markets. On the development front, Healthpeak had four lab development projects underway with an estimated total cost at completion of around $402 million and five outpatient medical development projects in process with an aggregate estimated cost of nearly $180 million as of March 31, 2025.

The company maintains a healthy balance sheet and exited the first quarter of 2025 with around $2.8 billion of total liquidity and a net debt-to-adjusted EBITDAre of 5.2X. It also enjoys favorable long-term credit ratings of Baa1 from Moody’s and BBB+ from S&P Global as of April 23, 2025. With investment-grade credit ratings, the company can easily access the debt and equity markets to fund capital commitments at favorable costs. With a sound liquidity position, Healthpeak is well-placed to bank on growth opportunities.

What’s Hurting DOC Stock?

Healthpeak operates in a competitive market and contends with several other companies providing similar healthcare services or alternatives. The company’s operators contend with peers for occupancy, which could limit their power to raise rents and affect revenues and profitability.

Healthpeak’s development and redevelopment pipeline, although encouraging for long-term growth, exposes it to the risks associated with rising construction costs.

The company has a substantial debt burden, and its consolidated debt as of March 31, 2025, was approximately $8.88 billion.

Over the past three months, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have declined 10.6% against the industry's growth of 0.3%.

 

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Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are VICI Properties (VICI - Free Report) and W.P. Carey (WPC - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for VICI’s 2025 FFO per share has been moved one cent northward to $2.34 over the past month.

The consensus estimate for WPC’s 2025 FFO per share has been revised upward by 1% to $4.88 over the past two months.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.


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