The Intelligent REIT Investor Guide

CHAPTER 6Office, Healthcare, Self‐Storage, and Lodging REITs

“Successful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent, and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it.”

—Benjamin Graham

REIT investors tend to group office buildings and industrial properties together often enough. To some degree, this makes sense since they're the primary types of properties leased directly to businesses that don't rely on consumer traffic. In this respect, they're quite unique. But in so many others, they're exceptionally different, hence the reason why industrial properties are included in the technology chapter instead.

This chapter's resulting list of the office, healthcare, self‐storage, and hotel/lodging subsectors might seem random. And it's true that they have little direct connections other than that they're publicly traded landlords and commonly recognized members of “REIT‐dom.”

Let's not waste time on further reflection about the macro REIT universe just yet though. There will be plenty of time for that in future chapters. Instead, let's delve into the “micro” business of leasing offices and the like.

Office Buildings

Accounting for roughly $75 billion in market value, there are 26 office buildings REITs that can be further broken down into two categories: gateway and non‐gateway REITs. Gateway REITs hold portfolios concentrated in six of the largest U.S. cities: New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Non‐gateway ...