REITs - Real Estate Investment Trusts - Info & Discussion
- Kirk
- JenL_2
- Kirk
- JenL_2
- RhyneN
- RhyneN
- Thruhiker
- RhyneN
- RhyneN
- Hughey
This archived discussion is "read only".
For the corresponding "live" discussions, post in the active topic forum here.
« Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next »
» Kirk - 3 Cheers for RhyneN!
In response to message posted by RhyneN:Thanks for your work here on REITs! You were sure well ahead of the crowd and pointed out the benefits of REIT investing long ago. We ALL appreciate it. 
I "knew" they were a good deal long ago as this post shows but I never did make the switch I was thinking about there and my foreign fund in the variable annuity I held on to has really hit the skids such that a CD would have returned about the same over the past 6 years or so! REITS would have been the right call...
Funny how we can have good ideas but never act...hard to sell funds that are going up even though I know in principle that more diversifying is a good idea.
I do have a REIT listed in my suggested asset allocation in my newsletter. I tend to follow Rande in that 0 to 10% seems an appropriate allocation level unless you study them and have a history of out performance with your REIT selections.
It is interesting to read back over the old posts on REITS. Norm (Happy) made a good point that they are good inflation hedges but we just saw good performance in a period of low inflation.
BTW, townhouse rents (2Bed/2.5Bath)have dropped from $2300 to $1800 per month in South San Jose and still there are vacancies...
-- posted by Kirk
» JenL_2 - Re: 3 Cheers for Rhyne & Paul!
In response to message posted by Kirk:and 3 Cheers for Paul - He was talking up REITs, and making some very good recommendations starting in June 99:
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/i...
Rhyne chimed in around Oct 99:
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/i...
...from the charts it looks like the bottom for REITs was in Dec 99 and they've had a very good run since then. Congrats Paul & Rhyne for being early. Let's keep the discussion/education going on this thread....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» Kirk - Re: Re: 3 Cheers for Rhyne & Paul!
In response to message posted by JenL_2:
Thanks Jen... forgot about Paul! I think he was actually first to post he owned them after I started this thread. I wonder if BillR ever bought or did he make the same mistake as I did and "just looked"?
-- posted by Kirk
» JenL_2 - REITs - Safe Haven??
This from 8/8 WSJ:REIT Second-Half Earnings Are Likely To Be Hurt by High Vacancies, Low Rents
By RAY A. SMITH
Second-quarter results for REITs weren't as bad as other sectors'. But fans shouldn't take that to mean they can now rest easy. Company executives and analysts alike are predicting that earnings of real-estate investment trusts could falter in the third and fourth quarters.
"While companies have been meeting expectations, many of the earnings announcements this season point to worsening conditions later this year," says Gregory J. Whyte, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, which lowered its expectations for REITs in April, based on anecdotal evidence of declining rents and increasing vacancies.
Mr. Whyte cites Duke Realty Corp., an Indianapolis-based owner of office and industrial properties which, in his opinion, "provided a particularly sobering commentary" during its conference call on second-quarter earnings, indicating that market conditions continued to weaken, especially in the suburban office sector.
A Duke spokesman says, "We were not trying to paint a gloom-and-doom scenario. We were trying to be candid about the fact that market conditions have softened compared with a year or two years ago."
In fact, a number of REITs have been warning analysts to lower expectations. Even officials at Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust -- which posted a 34% increase in second-quarter results from a year earlier, meeting analysts' consensus estimates -- warned last week it was approaching the second half with a large degree of caution.
Analysts aren't taking such signals lightly. Salomon Smith Barney last week revised downward its 2001 forecast on real-estate supply and demand on the belief the economic slowdown should boost available space.
Some firms are looking even further out. Green Street lowered earnings estimates on 15 REITs for 2002 out of the 70 companies it follows. The research firm raised estimates for five REITs.
"We're starting to see signs that REITs are not immune to what happens in the economy," says Mike Kirby, principal at Green Street. "They only lag what happens in the economy. If there's bad news today, it may be several years from now before all the bad news is incorporated into earnings. REITs are still benefiting from all the good news of the past few years."
Mr. Kirby says the sectors being hardest hit are the ones that have to do with business spending: office and hotel. According to statistics from Torto Wheaton Research, the amount of occupied office space in the second quarter dropped by 13.4 million square feet across the 72 markets it tracks throughout the U.S. This marks the second consecutive quarter in which the amount has declined since Torto, a unit of Los Angeles real-estate firm CB Richard Ellis Services Inc., began its quarterly study in 1987.
As for the hotel sector, Jason Ader, a lodging analyst at Bear Stearns & Co., stands by his 2001 forecast revision in June, which calls for revenue per available room, or revpar, to drop between 1% and 2% -- the first revpar decline in 10 years. He cites the economy's impact on business travel. Bethesda, Md.-based Host Marriott Corp., the biggest hotel REIT in the U.S., lowered its 2001 projections last month for that very reason.
So where does the industry go from here? If expectations for an economic recovery to begin late this year don't pan out, REIT earnings could come under pressure, says Mr. Whyte of Morgan Stanley. Even if that happens, he says, at least REITs will still be reporting a profit -- though lower than anticipated -- unlike many other sectors.
But if the economy turns around, some investors may turn to early-cycle sectors. REITs are thought of as mid- or late-cycle sectors, meaning investors won't necessarily choose them first during a recovery. "The thought that REITs were a safe place to hide is in part what has been buoying the group," he says.
Subscribe to WSJ Online @ http://www.wsj.com
.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» RhyneN - REIT run resumes
The Friday new all-time high of 409.17 on the Morgan-Stanley REIT Index (RMS) didn't last long. Today The RMS closed at 411.24, and there was an intraday high of 411.47.Maybe the Banc of America analysts are on to something with their prediction of RMS hitting 450 by year-end.
-- posted by RhyneN
» RhyneN - Re: anyone who invests by asset class ((read bernstein (my favor
In response to message posted by Thruhiker:I initially started investing in REITs because of a 1992 investment book by William Spitz, Treasurer of Vanderbilt University. I met Bill Spitz when he made a presentation to a college fund-raising foundation about investments. I was a director on that board and was impressed. Bill served as manager of investment managers for Vanderbilt's endowment. He wrote the book, GET RICH SLOWLY, Building Your Financial Future Through Common Sense, in which he set forth his view that an individual could be a manager of investment managers for himself or herself by using mutual funds. Bill recommended that portfolios have a 10% to 20% allocation in real estate.
Just today,I attended a special board meeting of a non-profit hospital which is considering changing investment advisors. One of the three managers of investment managers that we heard indicated that his firm viewed real estate as an overall category along with equities and bonds, because of the negative correlation with the other two categories.
-- posted by RhyneN
« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Next »
Please follow the guidelines set forth in the Suite101 Posting Etiquette when adding to the discussion.