Why doesn t Warren Buffett buy REITs?
“We don't have any competitive advantage over experienced real estate investors in the field." Buffett himself said something similar and extended this to REITs: I think [real estate] tends to be more accurately priced, particularly more developed real estate, most of the time...
Buffet and REITs
However, Berkshire sold its holdings of STORE Capital in 2022 after the company announced it was being acquired by two outside investment funds. Since then, filings have shown that Berkshire Hathaway has not owned shares of any other REIT.
Interest Rate Risk
The value of a REIT is based on the real estate market, so if interest rates increase and the demand for properties goes down as a result, it could lead to lower property values, negatively impacting the value of your investment.
Risks of investing in REITs include higher dividend taxes, sensitivity to interest rates, and exposure to specific property trends.
Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., acknowledged one of his biggest financial blunders in buying Dexter Shoe Co. in 1993. Dexter, a Maine-based shoemaker, was initially perceived as a thriving business.
Warren Buffet prefers to invest in REITs instead of real property because they are a great source of passive income, are reward-oriented, and are more liquid than property ownership.
REITs allow individual investors to make money on real estate without having to own or manage physical properties. Direct real estate offers more tax breaks than REIT investments, and gives investors more control over decision making.
But from a REIT-wide perspective, one of the biggest problems has been rising interest rates. Rising interest rates impact REITs in a number of ways. Directly, interest expenses can go up as the interest rates on variable-coupon debt increase and as fixed-rate debt rolls over.
Any increase in the short-term interest rate eats into the profit—so if it doubled in our example above, there'd be no profit left. And if it goes up even higher, the REIT loses money.
It depends on many factors, including the investor's individual preferences, risk tolerance, and timeline. If you're looking for something steady that requires little to no work on your end, REITs are a good option. But if you like more control and freedom, a direct investment may be a better option.
Do REITs go down in a recession?
REITs historically perform well during and after recessions | Pensions & Investments.
Publicly traded REITs have the particular risk of losing value as interest rates rise, which typically sends investment capital into bonds.
Delve into the Berkshire chairman and CEO's investment strategy. Warren Buffett is undoubtedly one of the most respected investors of all time. On paper, Buffett's investment strategy is pretty simple: Buy businesses, not stocks.
Top Berkshire Stock Holdings
Apple stock is the No. 1 holding in Berkshire's Dow stocks-heavy portfolio by market value. It is the No. 2 holding by number of shares, behind Bank of America. The conglomerate also kept other big and long-held positions unchanged.
To qualify as a REIT, a company must have the bulk of its assets and income connected to real estate investment and must distribute at least 90 percent of its taxable income to shareholders annually in the form of dividends.
According to the data, REITs have outperformed stocks over the long term, delivering an 11.9% average annual return from 1972 to 2021 (compared to 10.7% for the S&P 500). At that rate of return, a monthly investment of $300 in REITs would grow into $1 million in about 30 years.
Buffett avoids real estate investments due to precise pricing, lack of competitive edge, complex management and corporation tax disadvantages. However, he considers investing in real estate during crises or via REITs, offering diversification, liquidity and expert management.
“I recommend REITs within a managed portfolio,” Devine said, noting that most investors should limit their REIT exposure to between 2 percent and 5 percent of their overall portfolio. Here again, a financial professional can help you determine what percentage of your portfolio you should allocate toward REITs, if any.
Data source: Nareit and YCharts (2022). As you can see, REITs have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 20-, 25-, and 50-year periods. REITs also outperformed stocks in the most recent full year of available data (2021).
The FTSE Nareit All REITs index, which tracks the performance of all publicly traded REITs in the U.S., had an average annual total return (dividends included) of 3.58% during the five-year period that ended in August 2023. For the 10-year period between 2013 and 2022, the index averaged 7.48% per year.
Will REITs do well in 2024?
A favorable job market seems encouraging. Robust demand for certain real estate categories, such as that for data centers and need-based asset categories, is likely to keep the momentum going for REITs in 2024.
REITs. When interest rates are falling, dependable, regular income investments become harder to find. This benefits high-quality real estate investment trusts, or REITs. Strictly speaking, REITs are not fixed-income securities; their dividends are not predetermined but are based on income generated from real estate.
If a REIT fails to meet the 95-percent or 75-percent gross income tests but meets the requirements set forth in IRC § 856(c)(6), the REIT does not lose its REIT status but instead pays the tax imposed by IRC § 857(b)(5).
But since REITs are invested in property, there's more protection against the horror show of having shares crash to $0. By law, 75% of a REITs asset must be invested in real estate. The market value of the property owned by the REIT offers a bit of protection, as long as the value of the property doesn't go to zero.
A lot of REIT investors focus too way much on the dividend yield. They think that a high dividend yield implies that a REIT is cheap and a good investment opportunity. In reality, it is often the opposite, and the dividend does not say much, if anything, about the valuation of a REIT.
