Episode 447: Green Street Sees REITs as a “Relative Safe Haven” Amid Market Volatility

Danny Ismail, co-head of strategic research at Green Street, joined Nareit’s REIT Report podcast to discuss how real estate and REITs are positioned in the current highly volatile market environment created by last week's White House announcement on tariffs.

Ismail said there's good reason to fear a slowdown in economic growth resulting from an increase in tariffs, not just from potentially higher import costs, but also a pullback in business investment as well as consumer spending.

As for the market response, “we'll see how the next few weeks shake out, but thus far REITs and real estate appear to be a relative safe haven,” Ismail said. One reason for that is the starting valuation of REITs prior to the tariff announcement, where REITs looked attractive relative to the S&P 500. “REITs came into this environment on the cheaper side, while private real estate came in looking fairly valued,” Ismail noted.