VPN - Dividends Raised Rents Paid: REIT Earnings Recap

• Overshadowed by concerns about rising interest rates, a frenzy of real estate earnings reports over the last month have provided critical information on the state of the real estate industry.
• Roughly two-thirds of the 170 equity REITs in our coverage universe beat consensus FFO estimates while three dozen REITs have boosted their dividends through the first nine weeks of 2021.
• The post-vaccine sector rotation has been the prevailing theme of early 2021 as investors have shunned the faster-growing "essential" sectors in favor of reopening-sensitive sectors - retail, hotels, and office.
• These COVID-sensitive sectors aren't in the clear yet. Washington Prime is poised to become the third mall REIT in the past year to declare bankruptcy and other troubled REITs will take years to fully recover.
• Among the positive surprises, self-storage REITs reported a sharp upside inflection in late-2020, riding the strength of the housing-led recovery. Sunbelt and suburban-focused residential REITs and homebuilders reported strong results as well.

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