Is it a good time to get into REITs?
Analysts and talk show hosts may be bullish on REITs at the start of 2024, but it's necessary to address some drawbacks and potential downsides. Like any stock, the price of a REIT can roller coaster up and down with the market. While threats of a looming recession are fading, the market is always unpredictable.
To qualify as a REIT, a company must have the bulk of its assets and income connected to real estate investment and must distribute at least 90 percent of its taxable income to shareholders annually in the form of dividends.
March 5, 2024, at 3:47 p.m. REITs are public companies with large real estate portfolios, and are known to havesizable dividends. Real estate investments can be an excellent way to earn returns, generate cash flow, hedge against inflation and diversify an investment portfolio.
At least 75 percent of a REIT's gross income must be derived from rents from real property, interest on obligations secured by mortgages on real property, dividends from other REITs, and gain from the sale or other disposition of real property.
Nine Reasons Not to Invest in REITs
But, REITs are not risk free. They may have highly variable returns, are sensitive to changes in interest rates, have income tax implications, may not be liquid, and fees can impact total returns.
With healthy property fundamentals and a favorable interest rate environment, REIT fund managers expect the sector to deliver double digit returns this year.
The FTSE Nareit All Equity index, consisting of REITs that exclude mortgages, generated a 15.9% annualized return during recessions and 22.7% in the year following the end of a downturn, according to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.
Still, in a general sense, they are income securities and do trade like income securities. You can usually count on high-yielding REITs moving up when rates are moving down. Individual REITs like Realty Income Corp.
“I recommend REITs within a managed portfolio,” Devine said, noting that most investors should limit their REIT exposure to between 2 percent and 5 percent of their overall portfolio. Here again, a financial professional can help you determine what percentage of your portfolio you should allocate toward REITs, if any.
Investing in REITs can add some diversification to your portfolio and give you access to passive income, liquidity and excellent long-term returns. However, taxes can be more expensive with REITs compared to other investment options, and there are still risks involved with the real estate market.
Can REITs lose value?
Publicly traded REITs have the particular risk of losing value as interest rates rise, which typically sends investment capital into bonds.
| Symbol | Company | REIT performance (1-year total return) |
|---|---|---|
| DHC | Diversified Healthcare Trust | 242.63% |
| AOMR | Angel Oak Mortgage Inc. | 66.84% |
| SKT | Tanger Outlets | 59.56% |
| SLG | SL Green Realty Corp. | 57.13% |
The REIT must have held the property for at least two years (IRC § 857(b)(6)(C)(i)). The total expenditures made by the REIT, or any of its partners, during the two years preceding the sale of the land may not exceed 30 percent of the net selling price of the property (IRC § 857(b)(6)(C)(ii)).
The majority of REIT dividends are taxed as ordinary income up to the maximum rate of 37% (returning to 39.6% in 2026), plus a separate 3.8% surtax on investment income. Taxpayers may also generally deduct 20% of the combined qualified business income amount which includes Qualified REIT Dividends through Dec.
For Group REITs, the consequences of leaving early apply when the principal company of the group gives notice for the group as a whole to leave the regime within ten years of joining or where an exiting company has been a member of the Group REIT for less than ten years.
A lot of REIT investors focus too way much on the dividend yield. They think that a high dividend yield implies that a REIT is cheap and a good investment opportunity. In reality, it is often the opposite, and the dividend does not say much, if anything, about the valuation of a REIT.
According to consensus forecasts from FactSet, the number will dip in 2023, drop further in 2024 and return to growth in 2025 and beyond before hitting $633mn for the 2027 calendar year.
If you are looking to tap into a new source of funds for retirement, then real estate investment trusts (REITs) are a popular way to build a reliable passive income stream. REITs generate cash flow through rent or sales, and legally must pass on the majority of their profits to shareholders as dividends.
According to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit), non-traded REITs typically require a minimum investment of $1,000 to $2,500.
| # | Name | C. |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Prologis 1PLD | 🇺🇸 |
| 2 | American Tower 2AMT | 🇺🇸 |
| 3 | Equinix 3EQIX | 🇺🇸 |
| 4 | Simon Property Group 4SPG | 🇺🇸 |
What causes REITs to fall?
REIT Stock Performance and the Interest Rate Environment
REIT share prices, like the broader stock market, often react to changes in the outlook for interest rates, including both the short-term rates set by the Federal Reserve and the long-term rates that are governed more by market forces.
REITs provide natural protection against inflation. Real estate rents and values tend to increase when prices do. This supports REIT dividend growth and provides a reliable stream of income even during inflationary periods.
What this means is that REITs are ideal borrowers for banks. They are exactly who they want to do business with because they know that the risk of a REIT bankruptcy is extremely low. Just look at the past. There have been very few REIT bankruptcies over the past 50+ years.
This is known as the geographic market test. Section 856 (d)(2) (C) excludes impermissible tenant service income (ITSI) from the definition of rent from real property, making it “bad income” for the 75% and 95% REIT gross income tests.
The FTSE NAREIT All REIT Index rose 11.92% in November and 8.17% through Dec 26, outperforming the S&P 500's rise of 9.13% and 4.18%, respectively. As economic activity rebounds are in full swing, the REIT industry seems well-poised for a recovery in the coming year.
