Updated figures from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) show 2017’s senior housing and care transaction dollar volume was a little more robust than initially reported, coming in at $16.6 billion rather than the initially reported $14.1 billion. With the revised numbers, 2017’s total volume was up 14.4% from the $14.5 billion logged in 2016.

Institutional buyers—mostly equity funds that manage pension money or other types of institutional money—played a big role in the higher volume, according to a new blog post by Bill Kauffman, senior principal at NIC.

In 2015, institutional buyers added $3.2 billion in closed transactions while representing just 15% of all buyer volume. Then, in 2017, institutional buyers logged $6.6 billion in closed transactions, representing 40% of overall transaction volume and a 107% increase from 2015.

“A trend has emerged over the past couple years in which institutional buyers have significantly increased the representation of total buyer volume, while also increasing the dollar volume overall,” Kauffman wrote.

Some notable deals from institutional buyers in 2017 included:

— Kayne Anderson Real Estate Advisors closed on a $633 million, 32-property portfolio from Sentio Healthcare Properties.

— Columbia Pacific Advisors bought 54 seniors housing properties from Hawthorn Retirement Group for $1.8 billion.

— Blackstone purchased 60 Brookdale (NYSE: BKD) properties from HCP (NYSE: HCP) for roughly $1.1 billion.

— Blackstone also bought a 26-property Senior Lifestyle portfolio from Welltower (NYSE: HCN) for $747 billion.

— Chinese company Taikang Life Insurance closed on a partial interest in the NorthStar portfolio, which totaled about $460 million and included over 200 properties.

Meanwhile, public buyer activity largely decreased after 2015, according to Kauffman. Public buyers represented 53% of the $21.9 billion total closed transactions in 2015, but only 23% of the $16.6 billion total volume in 2017.

Conversely, private buyers—including private real estate investment trusts (REITs), private owner operators, and private partnerships—made up a greater share of deal volume in 2017. Private buyers logged $6.8 billion in volume in 2015, representing 31% of all volume that year. By 2017, private buyers registered $5.6 billion in deal volume and represented 34% of all volume that year.

The NIC figures reflect trends that have been noted in the industry, as publicly traded REITs backed off aggressive dealmaking after seeing their cost of capital advantages diminish, while also needing to digest some large acquisitions made in previous years.

Written by Tim Regan