REITs Around the World
Your Guide to Real Estate Investment Trusts in Nearly 40 Countries for Inflation Protection, Currency Hedging, Risk Management and Diversification
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What are Real Estate Investment Trusts
REIT Professional Associations
Should REITs Invest Outside Their Own Country?
How to Invest in REITs Around the World
"Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate." - Andrew Carnegie
Like to travel?
Like to stay and shop in nice places?
Like to make money from your investments?
This book is intended to help you do all three.
"REIT" stands for Real Estate Investment Trust and is a particular form of real estate company which is allowed by law to not pay taxes on the money it distributes to its owners -- and it's required to pay out at least 90%.
This is nearly ideal for income investors. People who bought them up, especially in the middle 1990s when there was a boom in REIT Initial Public Offers (IPO), have made out like bandits.
Today in the US, REITs have become respectable. Not quite stodgy, but even in this bear market their yields are not as high as they were back when only a select few knew about and understood the opportunity they represented.
The new frontier is now REITs outside the United States. Some of them are also established and respectable (Canada and Australia), but other markets are still a wild and wooly frontier.
REITs are great for people who believe the above quote by Andrew Carnegie (and similar ones attributed to other famous people), but are unwilling or unable to invest directly in real estate.
If you buy a second house to rent out, or other properties, you can make a lot of money, but you need:
1. Time to look around for the properties and to do everything else required
2. Negotiating skills
3. Repair and renovation skills (or dependable contractors to do the work for you at an affordable price)
4. Cash and a good credit record
5. Skills to find and keep good tenants
6. To be available, or arrange to have a backup, in case your tenants have problems
7. Enough ongoing cash to keep up with repairs
The risks:
1. Bad tenants can trash your property before the law allows you to evict them (and I've heard of them sneaking back into properties)
2. Your local market can go down in value (and quality of the neighborhood)
3. Destruction of the property (of course you better have insurance, but it's still a hassle at best)
4. You're tied down to the locality
5. If you aren't qualified to be a landlord, or don't want the hassles, you can hire a management company to do the work for you and just send you a check for your net profit every month, but they can be notoriously unreliable. In St Louis years ago, two brothers running a real estate management company ran away to Chile to escape the law. One of them eventually went to jail. The other jumped off a roof. The land owners they stole from didn't get their money back.
6. If you want to sell, it can take months to get your money. In the current economy it can take years.
Unless you're really turned on by being a landlord (some people are), it just makes a lot more sense to tell your broker to buy Real Estate Investment Trust units just as though they were shares of stock.
The success of REITs in the United States did not go unnoticed around the world. It took a few years, but eventually other companies began to pass similar laws.
Nearly 40 countries now have them, or at least have passed the laws. (In a few countries the law has been passed but is being held up by the taxing authority. In a few others, the law is there but no real estate entrepreneurs have formed one, or converted their existing real estate companies to the REIT form.).
Why You Should Invest in REITs Outside Your Own Country
REIT investors should diversify:
1. Geographically
Just as local real estate markets can rise and sink independently of each other, the 2008 financial crisis taught us that can happen to entire countries. The US real estate market was devastated, and many countries in Europe were hit hard. But Canada wasn't affected much at all. Australia also looks to have a great future.
2. Capital flows
US REITs mainly invest in the US, because the country is big enough to hold plenty of opportunity without the risk of leaving it.
But as I touched on in Chapter 37, owning property/REITs in other countries allows you to profit from economic transactions taking place far away in another country or continent.
3. Currencies
The value of the US dollar has been sliding downhill for decades. Even slight inflation adds up over time.
And its near-term prospects seem very bad. To try to prevent a depression in 2008, the US government took on the risk of bad assets from the financial institutions. Plus it's spent a lot of money on various stimulus and buy out schemes.
The US taxpayer is being treated as a bottomless gold mine, but of course we're not. We haven't broken yet, but we're struggling.
The Federal Reserve monetized some of our enormous national debt, directly creating inflation.
And despite all these efforts, the economy has barely budged, and unemployment is the highest it's been for decades.
However, the US dollar looks good compared to the euro which is threatened by the bankruptcy of Greece (and possibly Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal) as I write.
The British pound is not getting any press here, but the UK government also owes a h*ll of a lot of money.
And Japan owes something like twice its Gross Domestic Product, which is double the rate for the US. Despite that, currency traders are buying the yen, driving up its value. However, that's nothing to count on, because the Bank of Japan is selling yen like crazy to keep its value down.
Switzerland has the strongest currency in Europe, but the Swiss government wants to keep the franc's value down because it's an export-driven country and a rise in the franc makes it lose money.
However, the economies and dollars of Canada and Australia are looking good right now.
You could buy Canadian and Australian certificate of deposits, but the purchasing power of that interest income would go down in time thanks to inflation. And interest rates in those two countries are very low, as they are all around the world.
So why not get some Canadian and Australian dollar income flows that will go up with inflation, because they come from dynamic, innovative businesses that can raise rents?
Real Estate Investment Trusts
And why not also get some rental income from some of the most promising currencies of the developing countries -- such as Singapore and Hong Kong?
And remember, you don't know the future. Maybe Europe will get itself together, and you'll want a steady stream of euro income from REITs as well.
Whatever happens with Greek government bonds, people in Europe will continue to need apartments to live in and shops to buy food from.
Our Trip Around the World
This book takes you on a tour of those countries. I cover what I can of REITs in each one.
One thing I cannot do is evaluate those countries for their accounting practices and advise you on how to evaluate the REITs.
For one thing, although REITs are trusts in the US and many countries, in many they are other business entities. Accounting practices differ from country to country. I don't pretend to be an international legal and accounting expert.
In some countries the laws aren't being taken much advantage of -- yet. It's easy to forget after the law was passed in the US, it was three years before the first REIT was listed on the stock market.
And even then the industry remained immature -- little known and confused with fraudulent real estate partnerships -- for 30 more years.
The early 1990s gave the industry a big boost because of that period's recession. A lot of high quality commercial properties were foreclosed on and taken possession of by banks.
Who didn't want them - they wanted money.
So the new REITs took the money they'd raised from the stock market and went bargain shopping at the banks.
Many private real estate companies decided it's be to their financial advantage to switch to REIT status, so investors got the opportunity to own a piece of some of the best real estate portfolios in the country.
Advantages of REITs to Governments
In a lot of countries, property sales are private, and kept secret . . . that is, not reported to the government so everybody can avoid paying taxes on the transaction.
Therefore, some governments are passing REIT laws hoping to make their local commercial real estate markets more transparent and tax-efficient.
Some countries suffer from extreme shortages of properties such as residential apartments and houses. The government wants to encourage private investment capital to build more apartments and houses for people, so offers tax-free profits as an incentive.
Our Itinerary
I'll start out covering some basic information on REITs and their professional associations around the world.
Then we'll start on our journey. I'll begin with REITs in the United States, because every trip starts where you already are (you may not be a US resident, but I'm from that country).
Then we'll head north to Canada, then south to Mexico, sail out into the Caribbean, and then south to the rest of Latin America.
Then we cross the Atlantic Ocean to the United Kingdom, visit the rest of Europe, and keep moving East to the Gulf Region, down to Africa, and then on to Asia and Australia, then finish up in New Zealand.
Along the way we'll read a few excerpts from our guidebook.
Then we'll finish up with the most important part -- how you can profit from investing in REITs.
If you wish to learn more about the individual REITs in each country, you can visit my website:
REITs from Income Investing Secrets
There's a page on every REIT I could find substantial information on, and that's almost all of them.
Ready?
First boarding call.
What are Real Estate Investment Trusts
REITs started in the United States as a 1960 law, The Real Estate Investment Trust Act of 1960, part of the Cigar Excise Tax Extension Act of 1960 signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Congress wanted to give small investors a chance to profit from commercial real estate as wealthy individuals and institutions have traditionally done.
The law allows investors to pool their money to acquire ownership interest in real estate properties, without having to own real estate directly -- especially commercial real estate.
Until then, individuals had to own real estate directly. However, it could be difficult for them to raise enough money to buy a second house or an apartment building, and even harder for one person to buy an office building or a shopping mall.
Those who did so needed a variety of skills to make the investment profitable, and they were still at risk from business conditions in their local area. Not to mention having to fix toilets at 2 o'clock in the morning.
The REIT structure in the United States is the blueprint. However, as they've spread around the world -- especially becoming popular since 2000 -- individual countries have come up with their own variations.
What makes them especially attractive for income investors is the provision they do not have to pay federal income taxes on the net income they distribute to unit holder -- and they're required to pay out at least 90%.
Therefore, they generally pay a lot more money than regular corporations -- which are subject to federal income taxes.
In the United States, REIT are trusts, not corporations. Therefore, when you want to invest in them, you buy up units, not shares. You are a unitholder.
U.S. law gives REITs a lot of freedom. They can do almost anything so long as it's related to real estate. They may develop land, build buildings, buy properties, renovate them and sell them.
These are known as equity REITs.
In the United States -- and this is rare in the rest of the world -- REITs may also enter the business of real estate financing. This is primarily for businesses, but some mortgage REITs were engaging in subprime mortgage lending until the 2007-2008 crash. Since that time, some new mortgage REITs have been started to take advantage of the bailout money being offering by the U.S. government to deal with the "toxic" assets -- poor performing mortgages -- on the books of many large financial institutions. This may be profitable for awhile because the US Federal Reserve has pledged to keep interest rates low for the next few years.
A few REITs engage in both activities, so they're known as hybrid REITs.
Many countries impose more restrictions on what activities a REIT may engage in. For instance, many -- though not all -- prohibit REITs from owning property outside that country.
Others have restrictions on development and resale of properties.
In the U.S. and some other countries REITs can be private, which means they're not listed on a stock exchange and available for sale only to Accredited Investors (in the US) -- or publicly listed on a stock exchange where you and I can use brokers to buy them on the secondary market.
For the most part, I ignore private REITs except in a few countries where there're no other REITs to write about.
Some countries allow only publicly listed REITs.
Some real estate companies have chosen to be publicly traded companies, or C corporations in the United States, but not to elect the tax status of REITs. These are known as real estate operating companies, or REOCs. Therefore, a REOC is not required to pay any dividends, just like other companies listed on a stock exchange. Therefore, the share price of a real estate operating company is more volatile, because there's no immediate reward for investors.
Many countries impose leverage or gearing restrictions on REITs, though the U.S. does not. That is, they declare a REIT may not borrow more than a certain percentage of the value of a building. This may prevent them from buying a good building, but is intended to keep REITs on a financially sound basis.
REITs can be very general, or very specialized.
Some specialize by type of real estate -- such as office buildings, self-storage or luxury apartments. Some buy every kind of property from farmland to parking lots.
Some specialize by geography. They'll invest only in Southern California. Some go all over the map.
Because REIT and REIT-like companies -- of course many of them have different names in different countries and different languages -- operate under varying legal structures, I have not attempted to analyze their accounting rules and conventions.
In the U.S., you analyze equity REITs by looking at things such as their Funds From Operation FFO and Adjusted Funds From Operation AFFO. That does not necessarily apply to REITs in other countries.
REIT Trade Organizations
Real Estate Investment Trusts are now represented around the world by three professional organizations:
National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT)
European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA)
Asian Public Real Estate Association (APREA)
National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
NAREIT is the American trade organization for REITs, and also promotes the interests of similar real estate companies around the world.
Their slogan is: REITs: Building Dividends and Diversification.
Although it's primarily a voice to represent every REIT, you can also join if you are a real estate professional or otherwise interested in the industry. You can join as an associate member instead of a corporate member.
Your membership includes a large number of sources of additional information about the REIT industry:
Online Handbook and membership directory.
NAREIT Slideshow about the basics of Real Estate Investment Trusts and the publicly traded real estate industry.
Federal REIT Tax Compedium -- an interactive tool for researching all IRS rulings regarding Real Estate Investment Trusts.
Real Estate Portfolio magazine -- all about real estate and investing in REITs.
Half off the regular price of NAREIT conferences.
Complimentary copies of various other industry magazines, including: Financial Standards Updates/Alerts, IRS REIT Guidance, Look Who's Talking About REITs and Publicly Traded Real Estate, Look Who's Talking Around The Globe, NAREIT Domestic Returns, NAREIT Global Daily Return, NAREIT NewsBrief, NAREIT Quick Member Guide and the State and Local Tax Policy Bulletin.
You get a discount on various other publications.
You get access to these research publications: Data Library; (comprehensive source for industry performance statistics and capital market activities), REITWatch; NAREIT's online statistical report; and NAREIT's monthly online publication that summarizes trends in the REIT and publicly traded real estate industry.
The NAREIT Website Contains a Wealth of Information on the REIT Industry
Their subsidiary site contains more information on how to invest in Real Estate Investment Trusts.
They also act to promote investments in REIT stocks in many ways -- for instance, by lobbying Congress to pass legislation to add a real estate index option to the federal employees' Thrift Fund.
They also promote high quality, uniform accounting standards for real estate investment trusts to practice. It would immensely benefit REIT investors if they could easily compare Funds From Operations (FFO) and Adjusted Funds From Operations (AFFO) figures across all companies.
They also sponsor the FTSE NAREIT US Real Estate Index Series and the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index.
The front page of their web site contains links to interesting stories about REITs in the financial press.
European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA)
The European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) is the trade association of publicly listed real estate companies or Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) in Europe.
The EPRA now has over 200 members, including property companies and investors. It was founded in 1999, is a nonprofit organization and is based in Brussels, Belgium. They work to encourage investment is REITs in Europe, and to encourage best practices across the industry.
Asian Public Real Estate Association
The Asian Public Real Estate Association (APREA) is a non-profit industry trade group of Asian Real Estate Investment Trusts. It is based in Singapore. It is for both publicly listed and private Real Estate Investment Trusts, and was established in 2005.
Generally, APREA's goals are to promote real estate investment, promote the interest of REITs and to represent the industry to governments in the region. Jaime Ysmael of Ayala Land Inc is the President. They currently have 134 members, including institutional investors, REITs, other commercial real estate companies, real estate consultants and law firms.
They operate an educational program for real estate professionals, though the APREA Institute.
They have Chapters in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and India.
Therefore, the Asian Public Real Estate Association is working hard to promote property investment in Asia. They don't cover Real Estate Investment Trusts only, but may encourage countries in Asia which don't currently on REIT laws on their books to create REITs in their countries as well.
Real Estate Investment Trusts in the United States - REITs
The first one started up in 1963.
Their popularity grew slowly at first. In the 1980s they got confused with real estate partnerships which were tax scams sold to unwary investors by brokers.
However, the 1990-92 recession gave them a big boost.
In those years, a lot of commercial real estate properties had their mortgages foreclosed on by banks. But banks don't like to own such real estate, so they were happy when REITs lined up cash in hand to acquire quality properties for a cheap price.
From 1993-95, lots of private real estate companies chose to go public as a REIT to raise the cash to take advantage of these deals.
And gradually investors learned what a good deal REITs were for them.
REITs did great until the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
Many mortgage REITs, especially the ones who had been active in the subprime mortgage market, went out of business.
Some REITs were de-listed and became private companies.
In 2009 the IRS adjusted the rules to allow REITs to issue new units in lieu of cash distributions.
This happened because the financial crisis was very hard on some REITs. Obviously, getting new units instead of cash quarterly distributions did not go over well with investors who bought REIT units for the income.
However, REITs in general have recovered pretty well from the crisis. While private real estate companies have struggled to obtain the credit they need, REITs were able to get funding from the public capital markets.
Publicly listed REITs in the United States can choose to work directly in the real estate business by developing, buying, renovating, owning and managing and selling property.
These are known as equity REITs.
They may also choose to engage in real estate financing.
Those are known as mortgage REITs.
Essentially, they make money by borrowing money for a cheap interest rate and then loan it out at a higher interest rate.
This can work well. But in the financial crisis of 2008 many of them got hammered. When the credit markets froze, they could no longer borrow money, but still owed money on their obligations.
Mortgage REITs may do sale/leaseback deals, mezzanine financing and other types of transactions little understood by people outside the business.
In the United States, REITs are set up as legal trusts. They are operated on behalf of the owners -- that is, the unit holders.
What makes them especially attractive for income investors is the provision they do not have to pay federal income taxes on the net income they distribute to unit holder -- and they're required to pay out at least 90%.
Therefore, they generally pay a lot more money to their unit holders than regular corporations do to their shareholders -- which are subject to federal income taxes.
U.S. law gives REITs a lot of freedom to act to build -- or lose -- unitholder value. They can do almost anything so long as it's related to real estate. They may develop land, build buildings, buy properties, renovate them and sell them.
REITs in the US can be very general, or very specialized. There's one that buys only office buildings in Manhattan. Some own only self-storage facilities, medical buildings, timber land, warehouses or Section 8 apartments.
Some specialize by geography. They'll invest only in Southern California. Some go all over the map.
Because in the U.S. REITs are not corporations, the usual accounting rule and generally accepted principles don't apply.
When you want to evaluate the financial status of most companies, the first figure you want to know is, what is their net operating income. Because if they're not making much money, you don't need to know anything else. Nothing else is important.
But for a REIT, you look first at their Funds From Operations or FFO. That's because REITs own a lot of real estate property, and the law allows them to take depreciation of that property as an expense.
Nothing lasts forever, including the best-constructed buildings, so every year the REIT can write down a percentage of their property because of depreciation.
And this amount is then subtracted from their gross income, to figure their net income.
But the truth is, barring floods, fires and other disasters, modern buildings last longer than depreciation assumes.
And depreciation is a "paper" expense. It's a figure that's deducted from net income, but -- unlike other kinds of expenses such as repairs and payroll -- it does not take cash out of the company's bank account.
Therefore, it makes more sense when evaluating how well a REIT is handling its cash, to add the depreciation expense back.
And the same thing applies to amortization.
Amortization is much like depreciation, except it doesn't apply to physical objects. It applies to large, one-time expenses. REITs might amortize leasing commissions paid to leasing agents, and tenant improvement allowances, which is the expense of remodeling a property to suit the needs of a particular tenant.
For a lot more details on Real Estate Investment Trusts in the United States, I recommend the book by Ralph Block:
Investing in REITs: Real Estate Investment Trusts by Ralph L. Block
Major REITs in the United States Include:
Kimco Realty (NYSE:KIM) is the U.S.'s largest retail REIT specializing in neighborhood and community shopping centers.
Kimco started in 1960 with a partnership between Milton Cooper, Chairman and CEO, and Martin Kimmel, Chairman Emeritus. Milton Cooper is a well-known and respected leader in the real estate industry.
They operate the kind of small strip shopping that's anchored by a supermarket, a discount department store or a drugstore. Where you go to buy a quick loaf of bread or tube of toothpaste.
Kimco now owns about 2,000 properties in 45 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Chile.
ProLogis Trust (NYSE:PLD) is the world's largest owner, manager and developer of distribution facilities. They have 542.3 million square feet of industrial space in 132 markets around the world, from North America to to Europe to Asia. Their facilities are located near transportation hubs, such as sea ports, airports, and major highways.
Weingarten Realty (NYSE:WRI) is has neighborhood and community shopping centers and industrial real estate across the United States, in 23 states. Most of their shopping centers are high class strip malls rather than full-fledged shopping centers.
Weingarten is also one of the oldest REITs in the US.
Simon Property Group (NYSE:SPG) is the largest publicly traded REIT in the US. It focuses on regional shopping malls. They're in over 190 locations in the United States -- with over 383 properties with 261 million square feet.
It invests in five different types: Premium Outlet Centers, The Mills, community/lifestyle centers, regional malls and international properties in Europe and Asia as well as North America.
Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE:VNO) is a one of the largest fully-integrated REITs in the United States. They own a diversified portfolio of commercial real estate concentrated in four areas: New York City offices, Washington D.C. offices (Vornado/Charles E. Smith division), retail, and merchandise mart.
Weyerhaeuser Timber (NYSE:WY) is a major timber company recently converted to REIT status. This is a "coup" for the industry, because it's well-recognized brand name. That this company saw value in converting to REIT status helps validate it.
Other REITs in the US include:
UMH Properties, Inc -- United Mobile Homes
Regency Centers -- shopping centers anchored by grocery stores
Realty Income -- single tenant commercial properties
Public Storage -- operating storage space
Brandywine Realty Trust -- office and industrial properties
Brookfield Properties -- superior commercial real estate properties
BRE Properties -- residential properties in southern California
Boston Properties -- class A office buildings in Boston Massachusetts
Mack-Cali Realty -- East Coast USA office and office/flex properties
Cousins Properties Incorporated -- Sunbelt commercial properties
Duke Realty -- largest commercial real estate REIT
Health Care REIT -- healthcare industries commercial properties
Highwoods Properties -- southern and Midwestern US commercial properties
Hospitality Properties Trust -- hotel management
HRPT Properties Trust -- office properties
Kilroy Realty Corporation -- high quality commercial property in southern California
Liberty Property Trust -- commercial office and flex properties in both the US and UK
Lexington Realty Trust -- single tenant, net lease commercial properties
Maguire Properties -- class A office properties in southern California
National Retail Properties -- single tenant commercial properties
Corporate Office Properties Trust -- office properties
Pennsylvania REIT -- retail properties in Pennsylvania
SL Green Realty Corporation -- office buildings in Manhattan New York
Universal Health Realty Income Trust -- healthcare facilities
AMB Property Corporation -- leading developer of distribution facilities
BioMed Realty -- specialized real estate for life sciences industry properties
Developers Diversified Realty Corporation -- shopping centers
Digital Realty Trust -- IT datacenters REIT focusing in IT needs of companies
EastGroup Properties -- focused on industrial properties in the U.S. Sunbelt states
Equity One REIT -- neighborhood and community shopping centers in the south
First Potomac Realty Trust -- owning industrial and flex properties
First Industrial Realty -- international distribution centers for supply chain
Federal Realty Investment Trust -- retail property development, redevelopment and management REIT
Gladstone Commercial -- leasing business real estate and making mortgage property loans to small businesses
Inland Real Estate Corporation -- retail shopping centers in the Upper U.S. Midwest states
Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corporation -- net leasing commercial industrial properties to long term tenants
Mission West Properties -- research and development properties in Silicon Valley California
New Plan Excel Realty Trust -- retail neighborhood and community shopping center REIT
Prime Group Realty Trust -- Prime Group commercial real estate in and around Chicago Illinois
Parkway Properties -- office real estate property in southern United States and Chicago
PS Business Parks -- leasing office, industrial and flex space
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers -- leading manager and owner of factory outlet centers saving consumers money on brand name products
Agree Realty -- development and ownership of retail shopping centers, single tenant or grocery anchored
AIMCO -- Apartment Investment and Management Company, largest owner and operator of apartment complexes
Acadia Realty -- many shopping centers in the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic
AmREIT REIT -- they invest in "irreplaceable corner," high quality commercial retail properties in major markets
Archstone-Smith -- luxury apartment communities in major metropolitan areas
Avalon Bay Communities -- real estate investment trust owning and operating luxury apartment communities in high barrier to entry, major metropolitan areas
Saul Centers -- neighborhood and community shopping centers, and office properties
CLB & Associates Properties -- regional malls and community centers, retail shopping
Cedar Shopping Centers -- owns and operates shopping centers anchored by supermarkets
Equity Residential REIT -- "America's Choice for Apartment Living" is their slogan
Feldman Mall Properties -- invests in enclosed retail shopping malls
General Growth Properties -- large enclosed shopping malls REIT
Glimcher Realty Trust -- regional, super regional and community shopping malls real estate investment trust
Getty Realty Corp REIT -- service stations, convenience stores and petroleum distribution centers
Kite Realty Group -- quality neighborhood and community shopping centers
Macerich Company -- REIT that invests in major retail shopping centers in growing markets
Ramco-Gershenson Properties -- buys and manages shopping centers REIT
Taubman Centers -- high quality regional malls in the U.S., and being developed in Macao China and South Korea
Urstadt Biddle Properties -- community retail shopping centers in the Northeast United States
American Campus Communities -- real estate investment trust providing high quality housing for the college student market
Associated Estates Realty Corporation -- apartments for affluent markets
AMLI Residential Properties REIT -- provides high quality, expensive apartments for temporary corporate needs
American Land Lease -- manufactured home communities (MHC) for retirees, many age-restricted
Colonial Properties Trust -- owns many commercial real estate properties in the United States Sunbelt area -- the southern states
Camden Property Trust -- one of the largest multi-unit apartment building real estate investment trusts in the United States
Education Realty Trust -- real estate investment trust providing housing for college students
Equity Lifestyle Properties -- high quality resort properties REIT
Essex Property Trust -- REIT that acquires, develops, redevelops and manages multifamily apartment communities
Gables Residential -- REIT slogan -- Taking Care of the Way People Live and Forever Great
Home Properties -- owning and operating over 38,000 apartments
Investors Real Estate Trust -- focused on commercial real estate properties in the Upper Midwest of the United States, plus Texas