Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) Offer High Yields

A real estate investment trust (REIT) owns and manages a basket of properties from which it generates lots of cash. REITs own commercial (office, industrial and retail) and residential properties in all parts of the United States. Many REITs own land that is available for future development.

By law a REIT must distribute its excess cash to shareholders. The yield often exceeds five percent. Therefore, a well-managed REIT is an excellent candidate for a dividend reinvestment portfolio. But beware of high dividend yields caused by falling prices.

The following table lists well-known residential REITs with solid cash distributions.

Before you buy any of these stocks, check their price chart patterns. And check to confirm that their cash distributions are sustainable, particularly if the distribution yield is very high.

REITs Stocks
REIT and Website	Symbol	Annual Dividend & Yield	Dividend Chart	Price and PDI Chart	Multiyear Returns
AvalonBay Communities	AVB	$3.57 (4.00%)	Chart	Chart	Table
Essex Property Trust	ESS	$4.13 (4.40%)	Chart	Chart	Table
Home Properties	HME	$2.32 (4.90%)	Chart	Chart	Table
Mid-America Apartment Communities	MAA	$2.46 (4.50%)	Chart	Chart	Table
Senior Housing Properties Trust	SNH	$1.44 (6.40%)	Chart	Chart	Table

NOTE: Dividend data and prices are from finance.yahoo.com as of Mar-20-10.

Non-Dividend-Paying Portfolios includes links to each portfolio of a few or no dividend-paying stocks.

Dividend-Paying Portfolios includes links to each portfolio of dividend-paying stocks.

Great Dividend Stocks includes links to more dividend-paying stocks.

To follow the day-to-day progress of the REITs portfolio, check out the chart below. It is updated each day, so the portfolio values are always current. The current value of the portfolio assumes that $2,000.00 was invested (total of $10,000) in each of the 5 stocks at its closing weekly price for the first week of January 2001.

Click chart to enlarge it.

Today's date: Mar-20-10.