Is REITs a good investment?
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.
A potential drawback of purchasing non-traded REITs are the high up-front fees. Investors can expect to pay fees, which include commission and fees, between 9 and 10% of the entire investment.
With rate cuts on the horizon, dividend yields for REITs may look more favorable than yields on fixed-income securities and money market accounts. However, REIT stocks are only as good as the properties they own — and some real estate sectors may be better positioned than others.
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.
If you are interested in a real estate investment that is reliable, hands-off and offers dividends, REITs could be the answer. If you're looking for a higher-risk – but high-potential – investment or want to be able to invest in specific companies you admire, buying individual stocks could be the answer.
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 historically perform well during and after recessions | Pensions & Investments.
Does Warren Buffett invest in REITs? The short answer is yes. Berkshire Hathaway does allocate capital real estate ownership throughout REITs. Learn Warren Buffett REIT investments below.
The value of a REIT is based on the real estate market, so if interest rates increase and the demand for properties goes down as a result, it could lead to lower property values, negatively impacting the value of your investment.
While some stocks distribute dividends on a quarterly or annual basis, certain REITs pay quarterly or monthly. That can be an advantage for investors, whether the money is used for enhancing income or for reinvestment, especially since more frequent payments compound faster.
Is it hard to sell a REIT?
Getting out of a non-traded real estate investment trust, or REIT, can often be rather difficult and expensive. Once a REIT is closed to new investors, the board of directors of the REIT can suspend the redemption policy.
A well-constructed dividend portfolio could potentially yield anywhere from 2% to 8% per year. This means, to earn $3,000 monthly from dividend stocks, the required initial investment could range from $450,000 to $1.8 million, depending on the yield. Furthermore, potential capital gains can add to your total returns.
Anyone can invest in a public REIT as they would with a stock, but they must use a broker service to navigate this investment. These broker services can be self-directed for publicly traded REITs, but they are required for acquiring any securities. You must also use a broker to access a PNLR offering.
In 2023, more institutional investors will likely consider REITs as part of portfolio completion strategies to gain geographic diversification or sector diversification, or to enhance their portfolios' ESG attributes. Our 2023 outlook wouldn't be complete without a deep dive into the institutional investor space.
Over a 3-year period, the S&P Global REIT Index had an annualized return of 4.41%, while the 5-year annualized return was 1.95%. Based on sector breakdown, the largest allocations in the index are to industrial REITs (19.2%), retail REITs (17.9%), and multifamily residential REITs (10.4%).
REITs' average return
Return a minimum of 90% of taxable income in the form of shareholder dividends each year. This is a big draw for investor interest in REITs. Invest at least 75% of total assets in real estate or cash.
This is the biggest and most important mistake that REIT investors keep on making. They see REITs as "income vehicles" and therefore, they will select their investments based on their dividend yield. In their mind, the higher the better. But in reality, the dividend is just a capital allocation decision.
While REIT bankruptcies are rare -- and may not lead to a complete loss of shareholder value, as seen following the 2009 General Growth Properties bankruptcy -- REIT stocks can go to zero.
REITs and stocks can both pay dividends, usually on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. Some investments will also offer special dividends, but they're unpredictable.
REIT stock | Implied upside (over Feb. 2 close) |
---|---|
Realty Income Corp. (O) | 40.2% |
AvalonBay Communities Inc. (AVB) | 33.1% |
SBA Communications Corp. (SBAC) | 15.7% |
Equity Residential Properties Trust (EQR) | 44.6% |
Do REITs take on debt?
Since real estate investment can carry high debt levels, the sector is subject to interest rate risk. D/E ratios for companies in the real estate sector, including REITs, tend to range from 1.0 to over 8.0:1.
Right now, REITs (VNQ) are at an inflection point and time is running out for investors. But now as we head into 2024, we expect the polar opposite and this should lead to an epic recovery across the REIT sector. The Fed expects at least 3 interest rate cuts in 2024 and the market is predicting even more.
At that rate of return, a monthly investment of $300 in REITs would grow into $1 million in about 30 years. If you invested more money into REITs or those producing a higher average annual return, you could become a millionaire even faster.
In general, no. Although investing in REITs does carry risk, data suggests that REITs are less risky than stocks both in the short term and in the long term. As always, past performance does not guarantee future performance, but the data we have on hand is still quite promising for would-be REIT investors.
Poor Rates Of Compounding: Another big reason why REITs generally have low appeal to Buffett and Munger is because real estate generates poor returns on invested capital.
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