The State Of REITs: January 2026 Edition

REIT Performance Overview - REITs finished December 2025 with a total return of -1.48%, underperforming the broader market indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.92%), S&P 500 (+0.06%), and NASDAQ (-0.09%) [1] - The Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) had a December return of -2.24%, but outperformed the average REIT over the full year with a return of +3.26% compared to -3.57% for the average REIT [1] - The spread between the 2026 FFO multiples of large cap REITs (15.9x) and small cap REITs (12.7x) narrowed, with large caps contracting by 0.3 turns and small caps by 0.1 turns [1] Monthly Performance by Market Capitalization - In December, only small cap REITs had a positive total return of +0.51%, while mid caps (-1.77%), large caps (-2.55%), and micro caps (-3.88%) all finished in the red [3] - For the full year 2025, small cap REITs outperformed large caps by 240 basis points [3] Monthly Performance by Property Type - Half of the REIT property types averaged positive returns in December, with a total return spread of 13.22% between the best (Malls +6.19%, Single Family Housing +5.20%) and worst performing property types (Infrastructure -7.02%, Office -6.79%) [5][6] - The average return for REITs in December was -1.48%, with 9 out of 18 property types showing positive returns [5][6] Year-to-Date Performance by Property Type - For the full year 2025, the worst performing property types included Office (-22.07%), Infrastructure (-20.08%), and Land (-15.77%), all averaging double-digit negative total returns [7] - The top performing property types for the year were Health Care (+25.74%), Advertising (+25.50%), and Malls (+15.56%) [7] FFO Multiples and Valuation Trends - The average P/FFO for the REIT sector decreased from 13.7x to 13.4x during December, with 22.2% of property types experiencing multiple expansion and 72.2% seeing contraction [8] - Data Centers (22x), Land (21x), Manufactured Housing (17.5x), and Shopping Centers (16.5x) had the highest average multiples among REIT property types, while Hotels (7.7x) and Office (8.1x) were the only types with single-digit FFO multiples [8][9] Notable Individual Securities - Paramount Group (PGRE) was acquired by Rithm Capital Corp. for $6.60/share on December 19, marking the end of its trading [10] - Alexander & Baldwin (ALEX) was the best performing REIT in December with a gain of +34.29%, driven by news of its acquisition by Blackstone Real Estate and others for $21.20/share [11] - Fermi (FRMI) experienced the steepest losses in December at -51.49% after a major tenant canceled a $150 million agreement [12] Overall Market Sentiment - 42.04% of REITs had a positive total return in December, while 38.36% were in the black for the full year [13] - The average total return for REITs in 2025 was -3.57%, significantly lower than the +3.70% return for the sector in 2024 [13]