Key takeaways
- Healthcare and social real estate transaction volume in 2025 reached roughly €1.2 billion according to Savills Germany — up nine percent year-on-year.
- Prime yields on care homes in top locations with high-quality operators sit at roughly 5.1–5.2 percent according to Cushman & Wakefield and Savills.
- Assisted living, as the preferred asset class, achieves top yields around 4.5 percent.
- Core assets in Top-7 locations with AA-rated operators still trade at the tight end of the yield range; secondary locations and smaller regional operators trade 75–150 basis points wider.
The German senior living and care home investment market is now firmly in stabilisation mode in 2026. After the repricing wave of 2023/24 and a brief consolidation period in 2025, international capital is meaningfully returning. The principal beneficiary is the assisted living segment, driven by demographic necessity, lower operator risk, and a more favourable ESG narrative than traditional nursing homes.
Transaction volumes 2025/26: recovery with selective depth
Healthcare and social real estate transaction volume in 2025 reached roughly €1.2 billion according to Savills Germany — up nine percent year-on-year. A central support came from large transactions like the sale of the Deutsche Wohnen AG care home portfolio to the City of Hamburg, which alone accounted for about a third of total annual volume. Savills recorded around 50 transactions, consistent with 2024 activity.
CBRE Germany reported a dynamic Q1 2026, supported by a single large transaction. For the full year 2026, advisory houses expect volume slightly above 2025 levels, with the trajectory hinging on whether several pending platform sales and portfolio disposals close. Konii's reporting underlines that nursing homes remain the workhorse asset class, while medical centres (Ärztehäuser/MVZ) show the strongest relative growth.
Prime yields hold — the floor is in
Prime yields on care homes in top locations with high-quality operators sit at roughly 5.1–5.2 percent according to Cushman & Wakefield and Savills. Assisted living, as the preferred asset class, achieves top yields around 4.5 percent. Both numbers are stable quarter-on-quarter, and recent transaction evidence supports the conclusion that the market has found a clear floor.
The location and operator differentiation matters more than ever. Core assets in Top-7 locations with AA-rated operators still trade at the tight end of the yield range; secondary locations and smaller regional operators trade 75–150 basis points wider. That dispersion has widened materially over the past 18 months and reflects the heightened operator risk awareness following the high-profile insolvencies of 2023.
International capital returns — demographics as the driver
The defining market move in 2026 is the return of international capital. A Cushman & Wakefield survey reports that 58 percent of market participants expect rising strategic allocations to senior living. As Altenheim and DLA Piper document, meaningful capital is flowing back into Germany from North America, the UK, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. The driver is not just yield arithmetic but the unstoppable demographic wave: by 2040, Germany's population aged 80+ is projected to grow from about six to nearly nine million.
Family Offices and international private-equity platforms are particularly active in pursuing large-format portfolios. German Spezialfonds disposals are also showing up more frequently — an indicator that the repricing phase is broadly complete and that sellers are once again willing to clear at market-clearing levels.
A notable trend is the broadening geographic footprint. While in 2018/19 roughly two-thirds of healthcare transaction volume was in Top-7 cities, investors have extended their strategy meaningfully into C and D cities, where demographic profiles are often even stronger, competitive intensity is lower, and yields run 50–100 basis points wider.
Assisted living supply gap — the strategic bottleneck
The defining structural gap of the German senior living market in 2026 is the acute shortage of investable assisted living product. As PwC Germany and the RICS Property Journal note, the need for age-appropriate housing with light-touch service over the next 10 years runs into the hundreds of thousands of units — against a current installed base that does not come close to meeting it.
Nearly 50 percent of investors surveyed by Cushman & Wakefield missed their acquisition targets over the past two years. The principal reason: lack of product. Inventory density in assisted living is materially lower than in nursing homes, and new construction is constrained by high build costs and delays in the KfW subsidy regime.
This scarcity drives two emerging behaviours. First, traditional residential investors — institutional fund managers and large family offices — are now developing their own senior living pipelines, often in joint ventures with established operators such as Korian, Orpea, Vitanas or Cura. Second, hybrid concepts are emerging that combine conventional residential, service-style living, and outpatient care on a single site — a response to both demographic demand and the evolving regulatory environment.
What this means for principals: 2026 is the window to build senior living allocations, while product is still available at market-clearing pricing. Three segments warrant particular focus — assisted living in B-cities with strong demographic profiles, forward funding for new-build pipelines with top-tier operators, and selective repositioning of older care assets into modern service-living formats. Anyone choosing to wait should accept that as market maturity returns, entry pricing will compress further and today's off-market opportunities will dry up quickly.
AI-generated, editor-reviewed. Briefings are drafted by neospaces research models from current broker market data and reviewed by a broker before publication.