Nareit Rent Collection Surveys from Past Half-Year Highlight Resiliency of REITs During Crisis

The biggest story to emerge from the past six months has been the bounce-back in certain retail sectors. Funari noted that rent collection for free standing retail started out at 73% and by September was almost at 95% of typical rent collected. Shopping centers started the pandemic at slightly over 50% and were at 82% of typical rent collection by September, she noted.Nareit decided to end its regularly scheduled rent collection survey this month, Funari explained, because most property sectors had stabilized by July and the remaining sectors seemed to be heading in that direction through September.Furthermore, rent collection is only one piece of REIT operations, Funari said. “It says a lot about tenant health, which was useful information, especially early in the pandemic, but as we’ve stabilized over time, we’re just not learning new information about the REITs themselves.”