REITs: April MSA-Level Jobs Data Again Shows Relative Sunbelt Strength and DC Weakness

Research evidence excerpt

REITs: April MSA-Level Jobs Data Again Shows Relative Sunbelt Strength and DC Weakness

Truist Securities

Equity Research Report June 4, 2026

REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS

REITs: April MSA-Level Jobs Data Again

Shows Relative Sunbelt Strength and DC Michael Lewis, CFA

212-319-5659 Weakness Michael.R.Lewis@truist.com

What’s Incremental to Our View: The BLS released April MSA level employment data

yesterday. This note organizes some of it for the 40 largest MSAs and explores which

Anthony Hau REITs were experiencing the most/least favorable labor conditions in their markets.

212-303-4176 Figures 1 and 9 reflect continued Sunbelt job growth and improving New York results. Anthony.Hau@truist.com

The REITs with the weakest YOY job growth in their footprints tend to have material

Washington DC exposure. Leading indicators still suggest potentially weak employment

Kyle Bonci growth this summer.

914-419-9491

Kyle.Bonci@truist.com

Deniz Gunaydin

212-326-6074

Deniz.Gunaydin@truist.com

Alex Murphy

212-319-2173

Alex.Murphy@truist.com

16 Page Document

Reasons for this report

✓ Sector Update

✓ BLS released MSA-level employment Among the 40 largest U.S. MSAs, Raleigh posted the strongest year-over-year and

statistics for April 2026 month-over-month job growth. Orlando ranked in the top five for both YoY and

MoM gains.

Washington DC again lost the most jobs YoY, despite improving 10bps MoM. The

other largest losers over the past year tend not to be large REIT investment markets,

including Portland, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis and Virginia Beach.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S. in early 2020, Dallas has added

504K net new jobs, Houston 291K and Austin 267K. Over the same period,

San Francisco, Boston and Washington DC lost -96K, -57K and -51K jobs,