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Is Realty Income a Buy, Sell, or Hold in 2025?

Updated: 05-11-2024, 01.24 PM

Realty Income (NYSE: O) is often considered a reliable dividend stock for long-term investors. It’s one of the world’s largest real estate investment trusts (REITs), it pays monthly dividends, and it’s raised its payout 127 times since its IPO in 1994.

Over the past 30 years, Realty Income generated a total return of 4,960% with reinvested dividends, which easily beat the S&P 500‘s total return of 2,030%. But as 2025 approaches, should investors buy, sell, or hold this leading REIT stock?

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Three people talking in an office.
Image source: Getty Images.

Retail REITs like Realty Income buy up commercial properties, rent them out, and distribute most of that rental income to their investors as dividends. To maintain a favorable tax rate, U.S. REITs need to pay out at least 90% of their taxable income as dividends.

To analyze a REIT, we should review their growth in total properties, occupancy rates, and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share — which more accurately gauges a REIT’s profitability than its earnings per share (EPS). At Realty Income, all three metrics have been growing at a steady rate.

Metric

2021

2022

2023

1H 2024

Total Properties

11,136

12,237

13,458

15,450

Occupancy Rate

98.5%

99%

98.6%

98.8%

AFFO per share

$3.59

$3.92

$4.00

$2.09

Data source: Realty Income.

Realty Income also merged with its smaller competitor, Spirit Realty Capital, in January 2024. That all-stock merger added 2,037 properties to its portfolio.

Realty Income’s business looks rock solid, but the bears don’t like it because interest rates are still elevated and some of its top tenants are stumbling.

The Federal Reserve finally cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in four years in September, but it might slow down its future rate cuts if it fails to tame inflation. If that happens, REITs will lose their luster for two simple reasons. First, high interest rates will make it more expensive to purchase new properties. Second, elevated rates will make risk-free CDs and T-bills more attractive than REITs and other dividend stocks.

The other major issue is that two of Realty Income’s biggest tenants — Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA) and Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR)are struggling. Walgreens, which accounted for 3.3% of Realty Income’s annualized rent at the end of the second quarter of 2024, plans to shut 1,200 stores over the next three years. Dollar Tree, which accounted for 3.1% of its annualized rent, will close about 1,000 stores over the next few years. Some of Realty Income’s smaller tenants — including CVS, AMC, and Red Lobster — are also closing many of their brick-and-mortar locations.

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