Nareit surveyed its listed equity REIT membership about the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on April rent collections. Fifty-four listed equity REITs responded between April 8 and April 15, representing most property sectors and almost $418 billion in equity market capitalization or 44% of the FTSE Nareit All Equity REIT equity market capitalization. This research note summarizes the survey results, weighted by REIT equity market capitalization. The data center, diversified, infrastructure and specialty sectors are not included because survey participation was not sufficient to provide a representative sample or there were too few participants to allow us to release results while maintaining participant confidentiality.
Table 1 shows REITs’ rent collections in April as a share of their typical rent collections.
- Rent collection remained strong for the industrial property sector, with REITs receiving an average of 99% of their typical rents.
- Office sector rent collections were relatively strong, these REITs collected over 89% of typical rents.
- The health care REITs experienced a modest decline in rent collection with 86% of typical rents collected. The health sector results reflect a mix of business models, with medical offices experiencing declines in April rent payments while senior housing and skilled nursing rent payments appear to have been relatively stable.
- In the retail sector, there are three distinct sub sectors, shopping centers, regional malls, and free-standing. Shopping center REITs typically own grocery-anchored strip centers. They experienced a significant drop in rent collections to 46% of their typical rent in April. While survey participation did not warrant the release of results for malls and free-standing retail, the data suggest that mall rent collections were less than half of shopping centers and free-standing rent collections were somewhat higher than the shopping centers. The prevalence of grocery and drug stores among the tenant base for many shopping center and free-standing REITs was likely a stabilizing factor.
