REITs Top Dow, S&P Indexes in July

Host Hotels’ Marriott Marquis in New York City. The REIT’s stock was up more than 10% in July.

NEW YORK CITY—Although it may be too early to judge whether commercial real estate broadly has benefited from the turbulence caused by June’s unexpected outcome for the UK referendum on European Union membership, it’s clear that the US REIT sector has been riding high in a post-Brexit environment. Trepp’s Susan Persin reports that a combination of strong market fundamentals, positive second-quarter earnings reports and post-Brexit assurances of ongoing low interest rates helped real estate trusts achieve a 3.87% total return in July, outpacing the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.

At NAREIT, Brad Case, SVP for research and industry information, said last week that although Brexit has damaged investors in the U.K., especially in U.K. real estate markets, and appears to have damaged investors in the rest of Europe as well in both stock and real estate markets, “it had no negative effect—and maybe even a positive effect—for investors in the US. Especially investors in US REITs.”