As interest rates rise, the general rule is that REITs will underperform. However, the data doesn't back up that assumption. Iman Brivanlou, managing director of Income Equities at TCW, has looked at more than 20 years of historical data, and found that REITs actually show resiliency when interest rates rise.

It's a fact of the market. As interest rates increase, cap rates increase and the valuation multiple gets compressed. "Everyone understands that, and yet when you go back and look at the historical performance of the asset class during periods of rising interest rate environments, you'll see that REIT performance actually tends to keep up with the S&P if not outperform the S&P," Brivanlou tells GlobeSt.com.

Brivanlou analyzed data from 2000, tracking REIT performance alongside S&P performance during periods of rising interest rates. "Every time there was a 1% or higher increase in the 10-Year Treasury, we monitored the performance of the S&P from the peak to the trough of the rising interest rate environment, and what you noticed is that the REIT index modestly outperformed," he says.