Nareit's Reit Report Podcast

David Auerbach, REIT industry expert and the chief investment officer of Hoya Capital & Hoya ETFs, was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Auerbach said fundamentals for REITs have remained “very strong,” despite the Federal Reserve’s tighter monetary policy. “If you look at the last quarter, public REITs reported same store property level income about 10% above where they were pre-pandemic. Many of these REITs have been preparing for winter for a long period of time, cleaning up their balance sheets, focusing less on variable rate debt.”He added that investors want management teams to do four things—grow revenues, grow profits, grow guidance, and grow dividends. “Pretty much by and large, that's been what's happening across the spectrum in the REIT industry.”

Brad Thomas, real estate expert, analyst, and CEO of Wide Moat Research, was a guest of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.In this latest episode, Thomas discusses many of the themes and topics that appear in his newly released book, REITs for Dummies, including the increasingly important role played by PropTech within the sector.“We've seen PropTech throughout most every property category, in multifamily, self-storage, you name it. Every sector has some PropTech component, which is really an interesting part of this innovation…it's really helped these companies grow and produce more earnings,” Thomas says.

Avis Devine, associate professor of real estate finance and sustainability at the Schulich School of Business at Toronto’s York University, was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report.Devine discussed new research, sponsored by Nareit, into the sustainability performance of listed REITs and private real estate as well as their approaches toward sustainability commitments and disclosure, and the relationship between sustainability disclosure and performance among REITs.“Public and private real estate firms make different decisions regarding their sustainability commitments and their disclosure,” Devine said. Using the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) reporting structure, the research shows that historically REITs have outperformed private funds on sustainability performance. However, that gap has been narrowing in recent years

Todd Kellenberger, REIT client portfolio manager at Principal Asset Management, was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Kellenberger noted that listed REITs currently trade at significant valuation discounts to both equities and private real estate. He pointed out that the earnings price multiple of REITs versus equities today is over two standard deviations away from the long-term mean—"a level that's even cheaper than what we saw during the GFC, particularly for U.S. listed REITs.”Meanwhile, the change in valuations for private real estate have been slower than for listed REITs, given the appraisal-based methodologies and limited price discovery in today's transaction markets, he added.

Marcos Alvarado, president and CIO at Safehold Inc. (NYSE: SAFE), was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report.Alvarado said Safehold has made a “tremendous” amount of progress in the last six years in terms of portfolio expansion and growth in enterprise value, “but in the greater scheme of what we're looking to accomplish, I think we're still very, very early on…that's what excites us about the future.”

Travis McCready, head of life sciences, Americas markets, JLL, was a guest on the latest episode of the REIT Report.Speaking in conjunction with the release of JLL’s 2023 Life Sciences Industry and Real Estate Perspective, McCready noted that while Boston and San Francisco remain leading life science markets on a national and international level, other markets in the United States are showing signs of growth and vitality.

As part of Building to Zero, an ongoing series of interviews on the decarbonization of the commercial real estate sector, Duane Desiderio, senior vice president and counsel for the Real Estate Roundtable, joined a special episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Desiderio spoke with Nareit’s Senior Vice President of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Jessica Long to discuss recent and upcoming activity related to federal policy that supports real estate owners’ efforts to measure and reduce carbon emissions, disclose climate-related financial risk and opportunity, and comply with local building standards.

Richard Barkham, global chief economist, head of global research and head of Americas research at CBRE, was a guest on the latest episode of the REIT Report podcast.Barkham discussed the state of global cross-border real estate capital flows, which totaled $30.5 billion in the first half of this year. That marked a 52% decline from the same period a year earlier and down 44% compared to an average of the first half periods between 2018 to 2022.Despite being a “pretty weak year really,” the mood of the global real estate investor is “far from despondent,” Barkham said. The mood is “wary and cautious until we get a much clearer signal on the glide path for interest rates, both in the United States and in the global economy.”Notable trends during the first half included an inflow of funds into the U.S. from Singapore and Japan, reflecting the buyout of STORE Capital Corp. by sovereign wealth fund GIC and a $1 billion Japanese investment into New York City office.

Nicole Funari, Nareit vice president for research, was a guest on the latest episode of the Nareit REIT Report.Funari discussed Nareit’s new project that initially involves tracking quarterly investment holdings for the 28 largest actively managed real estate investment funds that focus on REITs from 2010 to the first quarter of 2023.While performance returns offer a broad market perspective on what investors think about REITs, by narrowing the focus to active managers, or “people whose income and livelihoods depends on how well they can read the market for commercial real estate, we really get to capitalize on their unique insights and their expertise in this area,” Funari said.

Nareit Senior Vice President for Research Ed Pierzak joined the latest episode of the REIT Report podcast to talk about some of the key findings from Nareit’s 2023 mid-year report.Pierzak noted that two main factors are at play today—the divergence in public and private real estate valuations, and challenges in the capital markets, particularly around refinancing.The public-private valuation gap really reached its peak in the latter half of 2022, Pierzak said. Progress has been made since then, albeit slowly, he noted. However, whenever such valuation dislocations occur, “they can present opportunities for REIT investors…historically, when we’ve seen these major public and private valuation divergences, we see that REIT total returns have tended to bounce and even surge.”

Gene Rubin, president of management consultancy firm Rivel, joined the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast to talk about strategic investor communications and investor engagement in the REIT space.Rivel recently carried out a generalist investor perception study on the REIT industry and Rubin discussed some of the findings that emerged. He noted that the outlook for REITs as an investment class in North America has “improved significantly” since a similar survey was undertaken in 2018. In the previous survey, over half of respondents said they were underweight in REITs, compared to about 40% this time.

Darin Turner, managing director and chief investment officer for Invesco’s listed real assets team, was a guest on the latest edition of the Nareit REIT Report podcast.Turner discussed the scope and growth of the tower REIT industry, its performance history, how the leasing structure works, the impact of 5G, global opportunities and challenges, benefits for the sector from AI and edge computing, and more.Key Takeaways from the interview include:There are approximately 420,000 macro tower and small cell sites across the United States, with REITs owing about 90% of the approximately 150,000 macro tower sites.There hasn’t been any significant new development of macro tower sites in the last decade. New supply is “incredibly limited.”Most of the recent growth for tower REITs has been in international markets, in both emerging and developed markets.

Tim Bodner, global and U.S. real estate deals leader at PwC, was a guest on the latest episode of the REIT Report podcast.Bodner commented on the current state of real estate transaction activity, how different property segments are faring, opportunities amid today’s challenging environment, strategies being used to get deals done, and more.During the interview, Bodner noted that:It’s a “much more challenging” deal environment today than it was previously.Pockets of strength are emerging across the real estate landscape, including logistics, self-storage, areas of the hospitality sector, experiential real estate, and even office.The most important factor in terms of getting deals done today is the stability of the underlying trends that are driving activity in a particular sector.

Julie Whelan, global head of occupier research at CBRE, was a guest on the latest episode of the Nareit REIT Report podcast.During the interview, Whelan discussed broad office occupancy trends, changes in how office space is utilized, the flight to quality, the role of flexible office space, the importance of an office’s location, and more.Among Whelan’s key takeaways were:Net effective rents, that account for landlord concessions, are continuing to grow at the top tier of the office market.In some cases, the rent differential between top quality and lower quality office space has never been greater.A great office building alone isn’t enough. “Buildings have to be in great submarkets right now,” and that means mixed-use environments.“The office has a really exciting role to play in the future of how cities are reinvented.” Office space is going to be in a transformative phase as it plays a key role in the evolution of mixed-use locations.

Nina Galbiati, Norges Bank’s global lead sustainability for real estate, was a guest on a special episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Norges Bank is a long-term investor that has roughly 4.1% of their global investment portfolio invested in real estate, with about half of that allocated to public REITs. With the firm’s focus on maximizing risk-adjusted returns, Norges has been an influential leader in promoting the adoption of sustainability for real estate companies globally for many years.On this episode of the REIT Report, Galbiati joined Nareit’s Senior Vice President of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Jessica Long to discuss how the real estate industry is addressing a key challenge of decarbonization planning and the importance of real estate companies in the U.S. clearly disclosing their strategy, decision making, and targets around key environmental matters.“Real estate is facing tremendous pressure to decarbonize. This is partly regulatory pressure, but it’s definitely coming from a

David Stafford, deputy chief investment officer at The City of Austin Employees' Retirement System (COAERS), was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report Podcast.During the interview, Stafford discussed COAERS’ decision to use REITs as part of a portfolio completion strategy starting in early 2020—an approach that has been successful for the fund and one that it continues to assess on an ongoing basis. He also spoke about the importance of having a mindset attuned to trying a new investment approach, the benefits that REITs provide to COAERS, market issues that COAERS is watching, advice for funds considering a change in strategy, and more.COAERS is a defined benefit plan that administers retirement benefits for regular employees of the city of Austin and currently serves about 19,000 current, inactive, and retired members. The system’s investments total approximately $3 billion and are broadly diversified across asset classes including equities, real assets, fixed income, multi-asset strate

John Vojticek, global head of liquid real assets at DWS, a global asset manager with nearly $1 trillion of assets under management, was a guest on the latest episode of the REIT Report podcast.Vojticek commented on the operating environment for listed REITs, DWS’s recommendations for using REITs in conjunction with private real estate to complete portfolios, the access REITs provide to emerging asset classes, the benefits of global investment in REITs, and more.

Uma Moriarity, senior investment strategist at CenterSquare Investment Management, was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Moriarity spoke about how REITs are faring in the current interest rate climate, how their valuations compare to private real estate, REITs and their position in the capital markets, property sectors that CenterSquare is bullish on, and more.A pause in interest rate hikes is generally expected to occur at the next Federal Reserve meeting, Moriarity said. While some are expecting a subsequent rate hike in July, “it’s fair to say that we're closer to the end (of the rate hike cycle) than we are to the beginning,” she added.

Andrew Duffy, co-founder, managing partner, chief investment officer, and senior portfolio manager of Ranger Global Real Estate Advisors, an independent investment advisor, was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Duffy spoke about: the state of commercial real estate today and how Ranger Global distinguishes between the performance of geographies and property types; the appeal of next generation property types; the advantages and risks of investing domestically versus globally; the dislocation between listed and private real estate; and the benefits of investing in listed real estate funds.

Chris Benjamin, CEO of Alexander & Baldwin, Inc. (NYSE: ALEX), was a guest on the latest episode of Nareit’s REIT Report podcast.Benjamin, who will step down as CEO on June 30, reflected on his tenure at A&B, why supporting community organizations has played an important complement to his executive role, the transformation the company has undergone and its decision to convert to a REIT, changing the culture of A&B and its progress on DEI issues, and more.Benjamin said that now is a good time for a transition in leadership, given that “we have nearly completed the significant transformation that we’ve gone through as a company.” The leadership change also coincides with Benjamin’s 60 th birthday, a point at which he is eager to pursue new interests. Lance Parker, currently A&B's president & COO, has been appointed president & CEO effective July 1.