Market Analysis & Research

The pension fund created the new investment mandate to add to its existing $1.7 billion REIT portfolio.

REITs’ access to capital demonstrates investor confidence in their ability to operate despite difficult economic and financial market conditions.

The high level of jobless claims week after week raised fears that new rounds of layoffs may be spreading from the sectors initially hit by the crisis to the rest of the economy, and perhaps warning of greater damage from the shutdowns.

REITs rebounded last week with a 5.2% total return, according to the FTSE Nareit All Equity REITs index, ending a string of declines over the three prior weeks.

The most visible sign of this lockdown is the collapse of sales transactions, which fell sharply as social distancing rules went into effect.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown has not been spread evenly across the economy or across real estate sectors.

All property sectors of the REIT universe declined last week as a surge in new cases of COVID-19 in many states raised concerns that the economic reopening may be delayed.

The June results show an improvement for most sectors, suggesting that re-openings of the retail sector in many parts of the country in May have had a positive economic impact for retail REITs.

The overall REIT sector was slightly down, with the All Equity REITs total return index declining 0.6%.

Nareit and Wilshire Associates participated in a webinar hosted by FTSE Russell.

The FTSE Nareit All Equity REITs index posted total returns of negative 4.5%. Broader markets were down as well, with the Russell 1000 reversing nearly all the gains of the prior week.

Bloomberg Intelligence and Nareit hosted their 9th joint webinar, “Commercial Real Estate’s Great Restart Brings Opportunity, Challenges.”