U.S. Retail/Net Lease REITs "Sole Searching - May 2026" Goldsmith

Research evidence excerpt

U.S. Retail/Net Lease REITs "Sole Searching - May 2026" Goldsmith

Global Research

28 May 2026ab

U.S. Retail/Net Lease REITs Equities

AmericasSole Searching - May 2026

Real Estate

Michael Goldsmith

Foot traffic data indicates a slowdown in discretionary spend Analyst

The key takeaway for the Retail and Net Lease REITs from the most recent Bloomberg michael.goldsmith@ubs.com

Placer.AI foot traffic data release is that essential goods and value retailers are showing +1-212-713 2951

resilience while discretionary spend categories such as Apparel Stores and Luxury Stores Ami Probandt

are seeing some pressure. Across our sample of ~200 retailers, we calculate that average Analyst

yr/yr foot traffic in April 2026 on a trailing 3M basis was down by -0.8%. This was a ami.probandt@ubs.com

slight deceleration from the January 2026 trailing 3M period when foot traffic was down +1-212-713 2078

-0.7%. Though overall, this indicates the consumer remains reasonably healthy. Foot Justin Haasbeek

traffic in value categories such as Off Price Retail and Wholesale were up on a T3M basis Associate Analyst

by 8.8% and 5.1% respectively. Essential Goods retailers also showed resilience with justin.haasbeek@ubs.com

Supermarkets up +1.0% and Convenient Stores up 0.9% on a T3M basis. In +1-212-713 2014

comparison, foot traffic in discretionary spend categories are seeing some pressure. Foot Anna O'Neil

traffic at Apparel Stores was down -2.2%, Luxury was down -3.5%, Home Associate Analyst

Improvement/Furnishing Stores were down -5.5%, and Electronics and Appliances were anna.oneil@ubs.com

down -6.7% on a T3M basis. Notably, Movie Theaters, which had seen seen double digit +1-212-713 4386

growth in their foot traffic in 1Q'26, all saw double digit declines on a yr/yr basis in April.