Dividends Premium REITs: June 2025

Resilience is key to superior REIT returns in second half 2025.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to your June Dividends Premium REITs.

This month features the complete quarterly “REIT Rater” table—with my comments on earnings and guidance for each of the 83 real estate investment trusts currently in the coverage universe. For a full explanation of all the items in the table, see the last section of this report.

This month, I’m adding a senior housing and related facilities landlord to the First Rate REITs list. The other best fresh money buy is a leading industrial REIT poised to deliver another round of solid operating numbers July 16.

As a sector, REITs overall had an up and down month. Our picks are again in the black on average. But uncertainty about the future direction of interest rates/borrowing costs is no doubt holding back the sector.

Critically, the key long-term drivers for robust sector returns are still very much in place, including most importantly the growing scarcity of certain property types. And as we wait for the next round of operating results, I’m confident in the prospects of all of all the First Rate REITs, as well as other buy-rate companies in the coverage universe not yet on that list.

Have comments or questions? Then please join my Dividends Roundtable forum on Discord. Thanks for reading!—RC

Seeking Resilience for Superior Returns

When you watch the investment markets daily—or pretty much constantly in my case—it’s easy to lose track of what you’re really playing for.

For one thing, we all tend to over focus on what’s working in the moment, and to want to shun what isn’t. And it’s all too easy to fall prey to the assumption that what’s going up now will keep moving higher indefinitely, and that an underperforming stock will remain a laggard.

Like everyone else who’s invested for several decades, I’ve given up on stocks that have later gone on to recover. And conversely, I’ve dug in with losing stocks when I would have been better off moving on.

I’ve come to accept is this is going to happen from time to time, no matter how disciplined I am. We don’t have perfect information as investors. And even the best management team can’t see the future. So unexpected developments come with the territory, both positive and negative.

Fortunately, when it comes to REITs, we can stack the odds of success in our favor by following this simple four-part investment strategy:

· Own only REITs with strong underlying businesses and be ready to move on if there’s real weakness.

· Never pay more than the highest recommended entry points for individual REITs. And put dollar cost averaging to work by taking positions in increments rather than all at once. For example, make one-third of your intended position immediately. Plan to take an additional one-third in six weeks and the final third a month after that. Buy at Dream Buy prices if possible.

· Be willing to take profits occasionally. A good benchmark is a share price 25 to 30 percent above the REIT’s highest recommended entry point. I provide both Dream Buy and profit taking prices for every REIT in our REIT Rater table included with this issue.

· Never load up on any one REIT. Always balance and diversify your positions.