REIT Fundamentals and Stock Performance; An Improved Approach Ahead of 2Q26 Earnings Season

Research evidence excerpt

REIT Fundamentals and Stock Performance; An Improved Approach Ahead of 2Q26 Earnings Season

REITs

EQUITY RESEARCH Industry Report

July 8, 2026

REIT Fundamentals and Stock Performance; An

Research Analysts:

Richard Anderson Improved Approach Ahead of 2Q26 Earnings Season

929-441-6927

Richard.Anderson@cantor.com BACKGROUND: In early December 2025, we unveiled a unique approach

Jay Kornreich to tracking real estate fundamentals through the creation of a composite

718-865-3439 index based on two equally-weighted factors: YoY changes to rent and Jay.Kornreich@cantor.com

occupancy. We then superimposed relative stock performance to gauge the Jeffrey Carr

929-709-0434 impact of fundamentals on REIT shares, and concluded that REIT stocks

Jeffrey.Carr@cantor.com have appeared to be much more influenced by external forces and much

less by internal operating results. We thought the lack of impact from

fundamentals could reverse and contribute to REIT outperformance in

2026, which indeed appears to have played a role this year. That is, a

focus on generally solid REIT fundamentals across most property types,

alongside question marks bubbling up outside of the REITs, has drawn

incremental generalist interest that has produced~1,000bps of YTD REIT

outperformance (versus the S&P 500). We believe the observations we

presented late in 2025 played at least a minor role (among other building

blocks we identified) in the resurgence of the REITs in 2026.

UPDATED APPROACH: Today, we update this exercise by including a third

component to the composite's definition -- i.e., the average spread for a

REITs publicly-traded debt. This narrows down our list to 21 REITs from our

coverage of 47 where we have the requisite rent and occupancy data (from

CoStar) AND public debt outstanding.