23 million new doctor visits a year: Why demand keeps rising for medical office space
Posted By: REjournals on October 2, 2025. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
Expect the demand for medical office space across the country to climb as the U.S. population continues to grow older.
That’s the main takeaway from the latest medical office report released by Marcus & Millichap in September.
According to Marcus & Millichap, there are about 67 million baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, in the United States. During the next five years, the U.S. population aged 65 and older will rise by about 7 million people.
This is big news for the medical office sector. In its report, they said that U.S. residents from the ages of 18 to 44 typically visit a physician 1.9 times a year, while those from the ages of 45 through 64 log an average of 3.7 yearly visits.
Those over the age of 65, though? According to their research, they visit a physician an average of 7.1 times a year. This means that an increase of 7 million people in the 65-and-older population will generate about 23 million more doctor visits every year.
Not surprisingly, then, the United States will need an influx of new medical office space during these years.
According to Marcus & Millichap, developers added about 8.4 million square feet of medical office space to the United States last year. Largely because of this new supply, the medical office vacancy rate rose to 9% in 2024. That figure remains far lower than the average office vacancy rate across the United States.
As the population ages, the demand for additional medical office space in the United States will continue to rise while vacancy rates will fall. They predicts that this will lead to rising rents in this sector.
The aging population isn’t just impacting medical office space, either. It’s also boosting demand for seniors housing.
Marcus & Millichap reported that as Baby Boomers age, the demand for independent-living, assisted-living, memory care and continuing care facilities could rise significantly.
According to the report, the number of U.S. residents who are older than 80 is expected to grow by 4.6% over the next year, 6% in 2027 and then by about 4.4% in each of the three years after that.
The United States will need about 600,000 new units of seniors housing over the next five years. Yet during the peak of the last seniors housing construction cycle in 2019, only 60,000 units were completed.
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