Industry Performance

The headline for the Mortgage REIT industry is a big one: the dividends paid by exchange-traded Mortgage REITs yield 10.54%, on average, as of the beginning of February 2017. 

Here’s the myth: an increase in interest rates is bad for real estate investors.  Here’s the empirical fact: the historical evidence shows that real estate investors—at least those who invest through exchange-traded REITs—have usually done better during rising-rate environments than when interest rates were declining.

There’s a persistent, predictable relationship between the liquid and illiquid real estate markets: private-side real estate valuations respond more slowly to changes in market conditions than do public-side valuations, so the values in private, illiquid markets typically lag public market values by two to five quarters on average, depending on whether participants in private markets are evaluating market conditions by looking at completed transactions or at property appraisals.  Correcting for that lag can give you a pretty good sense of whether a public/private arbitrage opportunity has arisen.

It may be surprising to many investors to learn that the same data they may use to value exchange-traded Equity REITs can also be used as a tactical signal for shifting capital between REITs and non-REIT stocks.

The price-to-NAV spread estimated at the end of 2016 suggests that total returns on exchange-traded Equity REITs would average about 13.6% per year over the next five years. 

The yield spread to Baa corporates as of the end of 2016 was in the bullish part of its historic range—and if a wide variety of estimates of the past relationship between spreads and forward-looking returns continues to hold, that currently bullish spread would suggest relatively bullish future total returns for investors in exchange-traded Equity REITs.

The yield spread to Treasuries as of the end of 2016 was in the bullish part of its historic range—and if a wide variety of estimates of the past relationship between spreads and forward-looking returns continues to hold, that currently bullish spread would suggest relatively bullish future total returns for investors in exchange-traded Equity REITs.

The diversification benefits of exchange-traded Equity REITs relative to the non-REIT parts of the stock market have persisted throughout a long period encompassing an almost unfathomly severe downturn—yet they have almost never been stronger than they were as 2016 came to a close.

While the factors that drive Equity REIT returns are always somewhat different from those driving the returns of non-REIT stocks, the differences between the two equity asset classes—real estate and non-REIT stocks—have rarely been more different than they are as of the start of 2017.

A below-standard year for exchange-traded Equity REITs was still better than their counterparts in the illiquid real estate market, while a stunningly successful year for exchange-traded Mortgage REITs wasn’t all that out of the ordinary.