Why don t more people invest in REITs?
Summary of Why Investors May Not Want to Invest in REITs
The lack of government regulation makes it difficult for investors to evaluate them since little to no information is available publicly. Also, they are not required to prepare audited financial statements.
Investing in REITs can be a passive, income-producing alternative to buying property directly. However, investors shouldn't be swayed by large dividend payments since REITs can underperform the market in a rising interest-rate environment.
More than a year of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve pushed down returns on real estate investment trusts, or REITs. While higher rates negatively impacted nearly every sector of the economy in 2022 and most of 2023, real estate was hit especially hard.
But from a REIT-wide perspective, one of the biggest problems has been rising interest rates. Rising interest rates impact REITs in a number of ways. Directly, interest expenses can go up as the interest rates on variable-coupon debt increase and as fixed-rate debt rolls over.
Risks of investing in REITs include higher dividend taxes, sensitivity to interest rates, and exposure to specific property trends.
Here are some of the main disadvantages of investing in a REIT. Market volatility: Value can fluctuate based on economic and market conditions. Interest rate risk: Changes in interest rates can affect the value of a REIT.
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.
Any increase in the short-term interest rate eats into the profit—so if it doubled in our example above, there'd be no profit left. And if it goes up even higher, the REIT loses money. All of that makes mortgage REITs extremely volatile, and their dividends are also extremely unpredictable.
REITs have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 20-, 25-, and 50-year periods. Stocks have delivered higher returns in recent years, with the S&P 500 beating REITs over the previous one-, five- and 10-year periods. However, the overall data shows that REITs have outperformed stocks over the long term.
Will REITs ever come back?
REITs have typically enjoyed strong absolute and relative total return performances after monetary policy tightening cycles end. The valuation divergence between REITs and private real estate will likely converge in 2024, making REITs an attractive option for investors.
With healthy property fundamentals and a favorable interest rate environment, REIT fund managers expect the sector to deliver double digit returns this year.
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been hammered since 2022 with interest rate increases. At the last Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meeting, the Federal Reserve promised another hike in 2023 and spooked the markets by stating that higher rates may have to continue for a longer time.
REITs historically perform well during and after recessions | Pensions & Investments.
REIT Returns
That's comparable to the S&P 500, with its average annual return of 11.98%. Both figures include dividends and price growth, and both are just a mathematical average of annual returns, not the more accurate compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
The REIT market is projected to see 2.6% year-over-year growth in 2023. The REIT market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 2.8% from 2022 to 2027. The market size is estimated to increase by $333.01 billion from 2022 to 2027.
When rates rise, REITs fall. At least that's the conventional wisdom. In recessions, interest rates fall. Normally bullish for REITs—consider them a “second-level” bet on a bond bounce.
The generous dividend payments enjoyed by REIT investors may look particularly attractive moving forward. With rate cuts on the horizon, dividend yields for REITs may look more favorable than yields on fixed-income securities and money market accounts.
Are REITs Good Investments? Investing in REITs is a great way to diversify your portfolio outside of traditional stocks and bonds and can be attractive for their strong dividends and long-term capital appreciation.
Real estate can protect against inflation because rental or lease payments can increase annually to reflect price increases and land and building values can rise alongside inflation. Past research on listed real estate as an inflation hedge has used mean variance as a metric for measuring risk.
Do billionaires invest in REITs?
An eye-popping yield likely inspired Jeff Yass of Susquehanna to buy 1.4 million shares of AGNC in the third quarter. Yass isn't the only billionaire placing bets on this mortgage REIT. John Overdeck and David Siegel of Two Sigma Investments scooped up 1.2 million shares.
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.
| Symbol | Fund name | 1-year return |
|---|---|---|
| BRIIX | Baron Real Estate Institutional | 13.13% |
| RRRRX | DWS RREEF Real Estate Securities Instil | 9.65% |
| CSRIX | Cohen & Steers Instl Realty Shares | 8.93% |
| AIGYX | abrdn Realty Income & Growth Instl | 8.53% |
But since REITs are invested in property, there's more protection against the horror show of having shares crash to $0. By law, 75% of a REITs asset must be invested in real estate. The market value of the property owned by the REIT offers a bit of protection, as long as the value of the property doesn't go to zero.
“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.
