Comments on Fund My Mutual Fund: Bookkeeping: Beginning to Build a REIT Short Portf...

Upon further reflection that might be an interesti...

2009-03-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

Upon further reflection that might be an interesting pairs trade - long ESS (or similar REIT) short office/retail focused REITs. A quick glance at the chart shows a stock OVER its 50 day moving average which is like finding a needle in a haystack in REIT world.

Anon #1, no I dont follow ESS - a quick glance sho...

2009-03-14T13:43:00.000-04:00

Anon #1, no I dont follow ESS - a quick glance shows its focused on apartments in the West. I'd think that would actually be a decent area since many former owners are now renters. Maybe rents will go down somewhat but I expect units to be strong. People gotta live somewhere theory?

Anon #2, get used to it. It will be worse a year from now. With global trade stagnating and small/medium businesses dying off - we have overbuilt. No different than retail.

Recent travel took me off exit 8A - NJ Turnpike, H...

2009-03-14T06:36:00.000-04:00

Recent travel took me off exit 8A - NJ Turnpike, Hightstown area. Was shocked to see about a 5 sq. mile area of huge warehouses and office buildings almost all totally vaccant and for sale or lease. Most were fairly new buildings. FYI....

Mark, do you follow ESS? It still trades at high m...

2009-03-13T23:57:00.000-04:00

Mark, do you follow ESS? It still trades at high multiple and high price. A lot of meat left on this Reits.

Hi mark

I saw that same story but have neve...

2009-03-13T15:19:00.000-04:00

Hi mark

I saw that same story but have never looked into those names other than to always hear how PSA is recession proof. If not there is a lot of meat to those bones (shorting)

Never heard of SSS, but PSA is a household (to investors anyhow) name. As recession deepends you might be onto something there.

Keep in mind many of these REITs have lots of debt to rollover and thats why they are wickedly weak on TOP of the decrease in rents coming

Not sure what the debt situation is with those 2 - if you find out feel free to drop a line. PSA has resistance at $60 so you can do a short and stop out over that if you are wrong quite easily.

But a good idea there. I was thinking a similar thought when I read the article but only could think of PSA as an obvious candidate.

Mark, any thoughts about storage REITs, like PSA o...

2009-03-13T14:42:00.000-04:00

Mark, any thoughts about storage REITs, like PSA or SSS? There was an article that said that many tenants are choosing not to pay the rent on their storage unit and are walking away much like the current housing crisis. It also said that many are having trouble attracting new customers and have resorted to offering several months free rent to lure in new tenants. So, they're not only losing tenants they also can't attract new ones. Sounds like it could be a losing proposition for these guys in the near-term.

It is funny
I was going to short MAC over $20
2009-03-13T14:31:00.000-04:00
It is funny
I was going to short MAC over $20
based on their sector exposure

then I did more reading and found the same thing you did - best operator this, not bad that
and I held back

now its 60% lower

so much for research

VNO is "a good operator" too! ;)

REIIIIT party. SLG is a beauty in terms of downtre...

2009-03-13T14:04:00.000-04:00

REIIIIT party. SLG is a beauty in terms of downtrending recently past few months. what's curious about MAC is i hear a lot of good things about them kind of like "best house in a bad neighborhood" thing. and also im pretty sure forbes had them rated as one of the highest reits... just interesting. obviously i think any house in a bad neighborhood gets brought down, but just thought i'd flag that as for whatever reason people seem to think that one will be ok... need to do more digging.

VNO is also offices and then federal realty is strip malls.