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Concept
Real estate investment trust
Summary
A real estate investment trust (REIT, pronounced "reet") is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, warehouses, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels and commercial forests. Some REITs engage in financing real estate.
Most countries' laws on REITs entitle a real estate company to pay less in corporation tax and capital gains tax. REITs have been criticised as enabling speculation on housing, and reducing housing affordability, without increasing finance for building.
REITs can be publicly traded on major exchanges, publicly registered but non-listed, or private. The two main types of REITs are equity REITs and mortgage REITs (mREITs). In November 2014, equity REITs were recognized as a distinct asset class in the Global Industry Classification Standard by S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI. The key statistics to examine the financial position and operation of a REIT include net asset value (NAV), funds from operations (FFO), and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO).
REITs were created in the United States after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Public Law 86-779, sometimes called the Cigar Excise Tax Extension of 1960. The law was enacted to allow all investors to invest in large-scale, diversified portfolios of income-producing real estate in the same way they typically invest in other asset classes – through the purchase and sale of liquid securities. The first REIT was American Realty Trust founded by Thomas J. Broyhill, cousin of Virginia U.S. Congressman Joel Broyhill in 1961 who pushed for the creation under Eisenhower.
As of 2021, at least 39 countries around the world have established REITs. A comprehensive index for the REIT and the global listed property market is the FTSE EPRA/Nareit Global Real Estate Index Series, which was created jointly in October 2001 by the index provider FTSE Group, Nareit and the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA).
Official source
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