Earnings from REITs or Real Estate Investment Trusts soar 10% higher in 2006 and investors are happy. For the last three years, REITs have been a favorite—garnering 30% annually and easily outpacing stocks. REITs are companies that own and operate commercial property portfolios. To avail of corporate tax breaks, REITs are required to pay out a large profit chunk through dividends. Investors are especially attracted to them since they are not as volatile as stocks and bonds.
The growth of REITs is partly attributable to a series of mergers and acquisitions, and financing companies pumping money into them.
Standard & Poor’s recently added shares of two REITs, Kimko Realty Corp and Boston Properties, to the extremely popular S&P 500 index. The two companies are set to report their quarterly earnings next week.

Kimko is a shopping center scheduled to release financial reports on Tuesday, with analysts polled by Thomson First Call looking for funds from operations (FFO) of 52 cents a share, up from 47 cents a share for the same period in 2005.
FFO is used to gauge REIT performance. It excludes gains or losses or losses on the sale of assets and non-cash charges for depreciation.

Following a higher occupancy rates of office real estate, Boston Properties is also set for an earnings report Tuesday. The company garnered more than 15% over the last three months. REITs are companies that own and operate commercial property portfolios. To avail of corporate tax breaks, REITs are required to pay out a large profit chunk through dividends. Investors are especially attracted to them since they are not as volatile as stocks and bonds.The growth of REITs is partly attributable to a series of mergers and acquisitions, and financing companies pumping money into them.Standard & Poor’s recently added shares of two REITs, Kimko Realty Corp and Boston Properties, to the extremely popular S&P 500 index. The two companies are set to report their quarterly earnings next week.

REITs are companies that own and operate commercial property portfolios. To avail of corporate tax breaks, REITs are required to pay out a large profit chunk through dividends. Investors are especially attracted to them since they are not as volatile as stocks and bonds.The growth of REITs is partly attributable to a series of mergers and acquisitions, and financing companies pumping money into them.Standard & Poor’s recently added shares of two REITs, Kimko Realty Corp and Boston Properties, to the extremely popular S&P 500 index. The two companies are set to report their quarterly earnings next week.Kimko is a shopping center scheduled to release financial reports on Tuesday, with analysts polled by Thomson First Call looking for funds from operations (FFO) of 52 cents a share, up from 47 cents a share for the same period in 2005.FFO is used to gauge REIT performance. It excludes gains or losses or losses on the sale of assets and non-cash charges for depreciation.

Following a higher occupancy rates of office real estate, Boston Properties is also set for an earnings report Tuesday. The company garnered more than 15% over the last three months.Other S&P players are also reporting next week, including Archstone-Smith Trust (apartments), (warehouses) Pro-Logis and (malls) Simon Property Group Inc.

Wall Street predicts FFO increasing to 55 cents per share for Archstone-Smith (up from 46 cents), 55 to 87 cents per share for ProLogis, and $1.12 to $1.20 for Simon Property.

By Royce Ambrocio
Real Estate Press
posted by Rick at 4/26/2006 12:28:00 AM

BlinkBits - BlinkList - Blogmarks - Buddymarks - CiteUlike - del.icio.us - de.lirio.us - Digg it - FeedMarker - Furl - Linkroll - ma.gnolia - RawSugar - Shadows - Simpy - Spurl - Yahoo MyWeb -