REITs edged lower last week, with a total return of -1.0% on the FTSE Nareit All Equity REITs Index. Broader markets, in contrast, moved slightly higher with a return of 0.5% on both the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000. Including last week’s returns, REITs are up 25.2% for the year compared with 19.9% and 19.2% for the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000.
The REIT property sectors with the largest declines included those that have had the strongest returns throughout the pandemic and recovery, but have given up some of these gains recently. For example, last week the data center REITs and infrastructure REITs were each down 3.5%, while self storage and industrial REITs declined 3.0% and 2.1%, respectively.
Despite these downward moves, however, self storage REITs have year-to-date returns of 42.7%. Gains on the other sectors are still well into the double-digits, with 24.3% for industrial REITs, and 22.5% for infrastructure and 15.5% for data centers.
REIT sectors in the plus column last week include lodging/resorts (4.4%), office (2.5%), and timber REITs (2.0%).
Mortgage REITs also rose last week with a return of 1.4% for home financing mREITs and 0.9% for commercial financing mREITs.
