`Counterintuitive` Strength In Brick-And-Mortar Lifts Outlook For Retail REITs

Despite high interest rates and slowing consumer spending, publicly traded retail owners have reported surging occupancy, allowing them to raise rents and boost their outlook for the rest of the year.

Major retail REITs are coming off a strong third quarter, with executives expressing a general sense of optimism as retailers are willing to pay more for the space amid record-low levels of available square footage nationally.

“We`re waiting for shoes to drop, but we haven`t seen it,” Simon Property Group CEO David Simon said on his company`s earnings call last week.

Many of the major retail REITs reported strong earnings and leasing activity for the quarter. The same companies that were hemorrhaging tenants during the depths of the pandemic are now raising rents as their centers increasingly fill up.

“There`s been a retail apocalypse. There`s been the Covid pandemic. There have been all things we`ve faced in terms of challenges. And we feel right now we`re in a really good spot to, hopefully, be the bright spot of commercial real estate,” Kimco Realty Corp. CEO Conor Flynn said during his company`s third-quarter earnings call.

Mall giant Simon reported a net profit of $594M in the third quarter, a 10.2% increase over the same period last year, while its occupancy rose from 94.5% in Q3 last year to 95.2%. It increased its expected earnings for the full year by 10 cents a share..

   ...more

RSK: Retail vacancy keeps dropping especially for smaller shops. So why all the talk about mall conversions? Because large box retail anchors are having the problem.