1 REIT Stock to Buy Before 2021
Empire State Realty Trust (NYSE: ESRT) is a real estate investment trust, or REIT, focused on office properties. It owns the iconic Empire State Building in Manhattan, as well as 13 other office properties in the New York City area. It has about 9.4 million rentable square feet of office space and another 700,000 square feet of retail space. In addition, the company operates the observatory atop the Empire State Building, which had just completed a multiyear renovation before the pandemic.
Both office and retail real estate have been hit hard by the pandemic, especially in New York City. Hardly anyone is working in offices right now, and retailers have been subject to long shutdowns followed by restrictive reopening procedures. While the observatory has been a must-see tourist attraction for decades, the company has reported traffic at about 4% of prior-year levels since reopening earlier this year.
The stock has performed tremendously since early November, when positive vaccine data started to trickle out. It's easy to understand why. An end to the COVID-19 pandemic would mean people could work in offices again, shop at stores, and ride those high-speed elevators up to the roof of the Empire State Building, which is ordinarily a fantastically profitable business for the company.
Source Fool.com