AvalonBay Is Creating $1.2 Billion of Value for Shareholders
As the pandemic hit in 2020, investors worried that apartment owners would get hit hard by vacancies and missed rent payments. Shares of apartment real estate investment trust (REIT) bellwether AvalonBay Communities (NYSE: AVB) fell more than 45% in the early days of the global health scare. But management never wavered in its approach, and that's going to pay off big for investors as the company looks to increase shareholder value by as much as $1.2 billion.
The early days of 2020 were a tense, uncertain time. Occupancy levels at AvalonBay and many of its peers started to fall. For example, in the first quarter of 2020, largely before the pandemic got underway, the REIT's occupancy rose 0.4%. But that number had turned negative by the second quarter, falling 1.2%. It reached a low of -2.7% in the third quarter before the red ink started to shrink, eventually turning positive again in the second quarter of 2021, when it grew 1.6%.
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Source Fool.com
