View from the Observation Deck

1. Having gone through and survived the punishing credit crisis of 2008, equity REITs have demonstrated the ability to raise substantial amounts of capital in the secondary market. This is critical for raising confidence levels.
2. REITs raised $37.5 billion in public equity in 2011, surpassing the previous record of $32.7 billion in 1997, according to REIT.com.
3. The ability to raise capital is a plus when needing to rollover commercial loans coming due. This is because property values are still depressed.
4. While the market capitalization of equity REITs is back to 2006 levels, we believe there is still value in owning publicly-traded equity REITs.
5. The FTSE NAREIT Equity REITs Index currently sports a dividend yield of around 3.67%, while trading 30.7% below its 10-year high (469.11 on 3/7/12 vs. 676.54 on 2/7/07).