In a Bloomberg story By Hui-yong Yu, REITs in U.S. Consider Paying Dividends in Stock to Save Cash, many publicly traded REITs may take advantage of a IRS ruling allowing them to pay dividends instead of cash. On December 10, 2008 the Internal Revenue Service issued Revenue Procedure 2008-68 announcing that the IRS will treat [...]
Standard & Poor’s announced that Health Care REIT Inc. (NYSE:HCN) will replace Sovereign Bancorp Inc.(NYSE:SOV) in the S&P 500. Standard & Poor’s Announces Changes to U.S. Indices [.pdf] Sovereign is being acquired by Banco Santander SA, leaving a vacancy in the index. Health Care REIT, Inc. is an equity real estate investment trust that invests [...]
Last week, President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 [html] [pdf] into law. You have heard about all of the programs designed to stimulate the housing market and to deal with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Summary of the “Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008″ [.pdf] from the Senate Banking [...]
Stephane Fitch of Forbes.com put together a sensationalist piece on real estate opportunity funds: The Other Real Estate Disaster. Fitch puts together some interesting numbers on the extent of holdings by private real estate funds: They account for one-sixth of $2 trillion in total net assets in private equity, says the London firm Private Equity [...]
NAREIT has collected a bunch of information and sites under one umbrella site: REIT.com. (Watch out for the music on the opening page!) According to SmartBrief: “REIT.com replaces the existing NAREIT Web site, as well as the current Real Estate Portfolio and InvestInREITs.com sites. REIT.com is designed to be your central source for investment news, [...]
While commercial property owners are worried about property market, much of the commercial property market remains stable or strong. In contrast, the residential market is still spiraling down and take lots of people and companies with it. First up, the summary of REIT earning reports show that most of the public real estate companies are [...]
In another sign that the commercial real estate sector is not in the same trouble as the residential sector, many REITs still have good ratings from S&P. According to Business week in the first quarter of 2008, the group posted a 0.8% total return, at a time when the S&P 500 index fell 9.4%. (REITs [...]
The latest issue of Goodwin Procter’s REsource magazine has been released. Here are the articles in this issue: Green Building: Now on Firm Footingby Rachael Simonoff Wexler and Shahrzad Mostofi Green building is no longer the passion of a few; it is the new standard for commercial and residential developments alike. Green design is an [...]
Arleen Jacobius of PIonline.com reports on institutional investors entering into joint ventures with REITs to as an alternative to direct real estate investments: Joint Ventures Emerging as New Vehicle for REITs. The nice match of pension funds and REITs is that they are both used to dealing with the complexities of the tax code and [...]
On Tuesday, the MSCI US REIT Index (RMZ) dropped 5.61% to 914.85, and the SNL US REIT Equity Index plummeted 5.59% to 235.96 with five winners, 106 losers and four companies closing flat. The losses mark the worst one-day tumble for the SNL US REIT Equity Index since July 25, 1989. By comparison, the Dow [...]