REITs invest in the majority of real estate property types, including offices, apartment buildings, warehouses, retail centers, medical facilities, data centers, cell towers and hotels.
The REIT Industry Sustainability Report 2024 includes industry trends, REIT sustainability reporting data and analysis, as well as useful information on the publicly traded U.S. REIT industry’s primary sustainability, social responsibility, and governance practices.
REITs directly employed an estimated 331,000 FTE employees who earned $31.1 billion of labor income in the U.S.
At the end of 2023, U.S. public REITs owned an estimated 580,000 properties—up 1% from the previous year—and 15 million acres of timberland across the U.S.
REITworld 2024, scheduled for Nov. 18-21 in Las Vegas, NV, will bring together REIT management teams, investors, and analysts for topical sessions, one-on-one meetings, and networking.
For 60 years, Nareit has led the U.S. REIT industry by ensuring its members’ best interests are promoted by providing unparalleled advocacy, investor outreach, continuing education and networking.
This update focuses on three property subsectors: apartments, free standing retail, and shopping center retail, given that rent collections in the industrial, office, and healthcare sectors have stabilized at high levels.
Nareit is steadfastly committed to working with its members to proactively address diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the REIT and commercial real estate industry.
Speaking as the voice of the industry, Nareit articulates its position at the highest levels of the U.S. and other governments, at state and local levels, and before numerous standards-setting organizations around the globe.
A healthy job market has been the key to economic recovery, and especially the recovery in commercial real estate markets. The link between hiring and the demand for office space is particularly obvious, and the impact that rising employment and wages have on consumer spending, retail sales and demand for retail properties is also clear. Recently we have seen that the strong job market has helped fortify the multifamily market in the face of increasing supply, as the Millenials that are finding new jobs are fueling rapid growth in demand for apartment rentals.
Solid economic growth and sustained job market gains are translating into recovery in the commercial property markets. The apartment sector continues to thrive despite increasing deliveries of new units, as job growth has spurred the formation of new rental households, boosting demand for apartments.
Fundamentals for the multifamily housing sector remain firm, even as new construction comes onto the market. Vacancy rates remain at their lows for the cycle, and rent growth has firmed. Going forward, we anticipate that the pent-up demand for apartments is likely to continue to bolster household formation, which is the ultimate source of demand for multifamily housing.
It has been popular to say that the economy suffered permanent (or at least long-lasting) damage during the financial crisis, and the economy’s new speed limit once recovery was fully underway would be 2 percent GDP growth and nonfarm payrolls rising 160,000 or so per month.
The Single Family Rental (SFR) housing market has grown rapidly since the start of the housing crisis. Home prices have risen sharply, however, especially in some of the markets where institutional investors including several REITs have set up SFR business. This raises questions about the prospects for the SFR sector.
Familiar themes from 2013 in commercial property markets carried over in the first quarter of 2014: Apartment markets held firm despite the steady ramp-up of new supply, the office sector continued to recover—gradually—but the retail market lagged behind.
An upswing in bank lending in the fourth quarter signals higher levels of activity across nonresidential real estate, multifamily residential and real estate construction and development. Bank lending for real estate investment is closely related to trends in transactions and prices. Recently-released data from the FDIC on bank lending reveal increased lending for investment in nonresidential real estate, multifamily residences, and construction and development.
Market conditions improved across all property types in the fourth quarter. Strong demand for apartments pushed absorption higher, although a pick-up in new supply tempered the decline in vacancy rates. Office rents increased, despite the slow decline in office vacancies.
Homeownership is stabilizing, but weak job market is still holding back both rental and ownership markets. The home ownership rate held steady for the final three quarters of 2013 at 65.1 percent, after having declined a half-percentage point or more each year since its peak in the mid-2000s (Chart 1). This tentative stabilization suggests that housing markets may soon move beyond the mortgage crisis and back to a period of more normal recovery and growth.
The economy showed more signs of financial healing in the third quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s Flow of Funds Accounts. Commercial lending strengthened as transactions and prices picked up. Commercial mortgage net lending increased to nearly $80 billion annualized, the strongest since prior to the financial crisis. Commercial banks provided $55 billion, roughly two-thirds of the total net lending. Life insurance companies increased their net position by the largest amount since the crisis, and net issuance of CMBS was positive for only the second time since 2007.