Investing November 17, 2009, 8:52PM EST

Commercial REITs: Investing in a Shaky Market

Amid bleak prospects for U.S. commercial real estate, investors have bid up REIT shares. Here, Wall Street pros scour the sector for investment prospects

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Anyone who's been paying attention to Wall Street investment strategists' forecasts for 2010 knows that a potential avalanche of commercial real estate foreclosures could hit the market—and the smartest thing to do is get out of the way. This would include steering clear of most of the real estate investment trusts, or REITs, in the commercial sector. These trusts hold a lot of the retail, office, and industrial properties that have fallen sharply in value and may find it hard to refinance the underlying loans that are set to mature in the next few years.

Add in the fact that shares of the publicly traded REITs that own roughly 15% to 20% of all commercial properties in the U.S. have appreciated nearly 100% since March and it's hard to find a compelling reason to buy any of these stocks right now. The MSCI U.S. REIT Index jumped 96.6% from Mar. 9 to Nov. 17.

Investors need to know, however, that the prospects for the public REITs are dramatically better than those of their privately held counterparts. That's because the public companies financed acquisitions at lower grades of leverage during the commercial real estate boom a few years ago, while private developers took out mortgages on properties at up to 90% loan-to-value ratios. The more highly leveraged players have been left with underwater investments following property value declines of 30% to 40%.

The question of survival for most of the 99 publicly traded REITs that BMO Capital Markets covers is largely off the table because these companies have proved that they can access the capital markets, says Paul Adornato, BMO's senior REIT analyst.

DDR's mortgage-backed securities win

This year, publicly traded REITs have raised over $20 billion through equity offerings and an additional $7 billion through unsecured debt offerings, according to John Wenker, co-manager of the First American Real Estate Securities Fund (FARCX).

In addition to better capital market conditions, the long-dormant commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market has begun to show new signs of life. On Nov. 16, Developers Diversified Realty (DDR) successfully sold $400 million in bonds guaranteed by 28 shopping malls in 19 states. Aided by the federal government's asset-backed securities loan facility (TALF), which lets investors borrow from the Federal Reserve to buy new CMBS, the offering was oversubscribed and priced at a lower premium than expected over comparable Treasury bonds.

The prospect of additional CMBS offerings under the TALF could help put a floor under commercial property values, reducing the flow of foreclosures to come.

"If the securitization market for commercial real estate starts to open up in return, it will be a dramatically positive catalyst for not only public real estate companies, but the [entire] commercial real estate sector," including privately held properties, says Wenker. Just how distressed the market gets remains to be seen over the next year or two and will depend largely on the state of the economy and the capital markets, he adds.

Adornato at BMO doubts the DDR deal will unleash a flood of CMBS deals, although two other trusts are exploring offerings of their own.

a big drop in maturing unsecured debt

Three weeks before DDR's breakthrough, Credit Sights predicted that the majority of REITs it covers will have enough cash and credit capacity to meet all unsecured debt obligations, at least through 2012.

Credit Sights noted that many REITs have used proceeds from equity offerings over the past three quarters to pay down maturing unsecured debt. "We are giving our companies credit that they can refinance their secured debt without having to kick in a significant amount of additional equity," or that they can mortgage unencumbered assets to raise cash to pay down secured debt that's maturing in the short term, certified financial advisor Craig Guttenplan wrote in an Oct. 25 report.