The Net Lease REIT Report For Q2 2021: Highest Demand In History

Summary

• Triple-net leases are an amazing way to obtain a low-maintenance, high-margin income stream.
• Since the announcement of effective vaccines, net lease REITs in aggregate have outperformed the stock market.
• REITs' share of all marketed single-tenant net lease sales YTD has diminished from previous years, perhaps because they have channeled their investment focus into off-market deals and sale-leasebacks.
• Net leased real estate is experiencing perhaps its highest level of demand in history, with billions of dollars flooding in from seemingly everywhere to chase a short supply of properties.
• I discuss four standout trends shaping the net lease space as well as some notable news, and finish with my top picks in this real estate sector.
• Looking for a helping hand in the market? Members of High Yield Landlord get exclusive ideas and guidance to navigate any climate. Learn More »

Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock via Getty Images

Introduction

The triple-net lease is a beautiful thing.

It's a lease structure in commercial real estate in which the tenant is obligated to pay for all building maintenance, property insurance, and real estate taxes. Of course, there are many variations on this structure, such as "double net" leases, where the tenant pays for insurance and taxes but shares maintenance responsibilities with the landlord.

With long lease terms that often include contractual rent escalations on a regular basis, net leased real estate is somewhat like a high-yielding, asset-backed corporate bond with upside for both capital appreciation and income. Then again, net leased properties are still real estate, and thus skilled asset management and property selection are still required for the investment strategy to work.

That's why I started the Net Lease REIT Report - to compare, contrast, and analyze the public companies devoted to this class of real estate.

My intention with the Net Lease REIT Report is to cover notable news, trends, and developments in the world of public net lease REITs on a quarterly basis. The idea is to be a one-stop shop to give investors a well-rounded view of the space and what individual players within it are doing.

I went into more detail about the structure of the report in "The Inaugural Net Lease REIT Report," and I encourage interested readers to check it. Due to the magnitude of things to discuss in the "trends" segment, we will skip the "specific metric comparison" in this report. Thus, today's order of events will go like this:

1. Overview of trends
2. Notable news
3. Good buys today

But first, let's get caught up on the performance of net lease REITs in the last year and a half.

Catching Up On The Year So Far

In a July 6 article, I explained why the NETLease Corporate Real Estate ETF (NETL) makes for "A Suitable Net Lease Benchmark." Using NETL as a benchmark, then, we can look back at net lease REITs' performance during and coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When COVID first swept into the United States, NETL nearly halved in the panicky selloff that ensued.

Data by YCharts

After all, NETL's component REITs are primarily concentrated in various retail and experiential sectors. After a decade of preparing to fight a war against e-commerce and standard recessions, net lease landlords instead found themselves battling pandemic-induced lockdowns.

From the trough on March 23 to early November, just before the announcement of effective vaccines, NETL's price performance tracked that of the stock market pretty closely, albeit with more volatility.

Data by YCharts

However, since the announcement of effective vaccines, NETL has outperformed, both on a price basis and (especially) a total return basis.

Data by YCharts

Given net lease REITs' broad exposure to the American economy in different sectors and property types, I would expect this outperformance to continue as long as pandemic lockdowns don't make a comeback.

Valuation is a substantial consideration in the projection of returns. NETL's component REITs have an average equity cash flow multiple (price to FFO) of around 18x, while the S&P 500 has a P/E ratio of 25x - or 22x on a forward twelve-month basis.

Trends In Net Lease

There are at least three major trends affecting the net lease world right now:

1. Shift in macroeconomic narratives
2. Tug-of-war between brick & mortar and e-commerce
3. Record demand for net lease real estate
4. Merger mania

Macro Narratives

For most of this year, the investment community (not to mention the economic and political communities) has been locked in a debate over the persistence, or lack thereof, of inflation. If consumer inflation rates as measured by the CPI remain elevated in the 4%-5% territory, then the net lease REITs with flatter, longer leases are in trouble. Such inflation rates would erode the real returns from their cash flow streams.

I have written before on numerous occasions about why net lease REITs are the most bond-like securities in the realm of equities. See, for instance:

• Net Lease REITs: The Perfect Investment For Deflation And Low Rates
• Net Lease REITs And The Threat Of Inflation
• The Inaugural Net Lease REIT Report

Since the bond market, and especially the market for government securities (i.e. Treasuries) approximates a giant macroeconomic betting platform.

It's not that REIT stocks themselves trade like bonds, but rather that their underlying assets (net leased properties) fundamentally act like bond proxies.

Net lease REITs typically have the longest lease terms of any sector of commercial real estate, and usually leases either are flat (no contractual rent escalations) or have fixed rent bumps of 1-2% annually. This makes net lease REITs more vulnerable than virtually any other type of real estate to sustained increases in inflation and interest rates.

Some net lease investors may be panicking after seeing four months in a row (April, May, June, and July) of elevated CPI readings. After all, sustained inflation is the arch-enemy of net lease. I believe these fears are unwarranted. I recently explained why in "The Macroeconomic Case For Disinflation Remains Strong."

It appears that the inflation narrative-fueled rally in the most inflation-protected net lease REITs has peaked. Compare, for instance, three companies with different inflation-protection profiles:

• Realty Income (O), with perhaps 1% average annual rent escalations
• W. P. Carey (WPC), with 2-3% annual rent bumps
• Gladstone Land (LAND), the most inflation-protected net lease REIT with most leases tied to fruit and vegetable prices in some way or another

Data by YCharts

So far this year, the inflation narrative has given LAND a massive boost, but it appears to have been overdone. Have fruit and veggie prices gone up by over 60% since the beginning of the year? No, they have not. Together, the two elements of the CPI are up an average of 6.2% since the beginning of the pandemic:

Data by YCharts

So, if LAND's stock price has soared far ahead of fruit and veggie prices, then was the stock 60% undervalued at the beginning of the year? Maybe so, if we use price to book value as a rough substitute for price to NAV:

Data by YCharts

It should be noted, though, that the pattern of LAND's price to book value is to rise when GDP growth rates are rising and to fall when GDP growth rates are falling.

Data by YCharts

Several macroeconomic indicators, including the Treasury yield curve (as we'll discuss shortly), were turning down sharply in 2019, despite a raging hot stock market. Coming out of the pandemic, economists have known that the rebound would be swift and strong, though no one knows when we would hit peak growth rates. Entering the second half of the year, though, the consensus view seems to have shifted downward.

To quote Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, from a recent CNBC article:

The good news is that the economy has now surpassed its pre-pandemic level. But with the impact from the fiscal stimulus waning, surging prices weakening purchasing power, the delta variant running amok in the south and the saving rate lower than we thought, we expect GDP growth to slow to 3.5% annualized in the second half of this year.

Note that Ashworth is referring to nominal GDP growth, which includes inflation. The chart above shows real GDP growth, which takes out the effect of inflation. Finishing the year around 3.5% annualized nominal GDP growth means that the real economy and aggregate standard of living will only be increasing by about 1.5%, assuming a 2% inflation rate. That is around its pre-pandemic level.

Simply put, most of the "fuel" for a strong economic resurgence has burnt out. Not only has most of the fiscal stimulus fizzled out, but most of the economic reopening boost is behind us as well. By mid-July, the average of all 50 states had reopened 93% of normal commerce.

Source: Strategas Research, Policy Outlook for July 16th

Unsurprisingly, the growth rate of retail sales in the US definitively peaked in April and has been sliding back toward its pre-pandemic range since then.

Data by YCharts

That is not simply due to year-over-year comps either. Since April 2021, total retail sales have slumped by a little over 2%. Pent-up consumer spending, facilitated in part by fiscal stimulus, seems to be fading.

Meanwhile, the crucial spread between 10-year and 2-year Treasury yields has come down about 50 basis points from its peak in April.

Source: The Bahnsen Group, July 26th

I believe that shift from an inflation narrative to "back to pre-pandemic normal" expectations is the reason why LAND has been rangebound (or sliding) since June.

However, going back to the weak growth and low inflation rates of the 2010s is a great environment for net lease REITs more broadly, if only because low growth and low inflation bring with them low interest rates.

Retail Tug-Of-War

Before COVID-19, the world of retail was locked in a fiercely competitive battle between e-commerce and brick and mortar. Since the onset of the pandemic, that struggle has only intensified.

During the height of lockdowns and social distancing, millions of people ordered groceries online, downloaded retailers' smartphone apps, or had meals delivered for the first time.

After growing 14.3% from 2018 to 2019, e-commerce sales jumped by an incredible 44% from 2019 to 2020.

Source: Digital Commerce 360

After such stunning growth, however, e-commerce sales in the US rose "only" 7.7% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2021, according to the Department of Commerce.

As a percentage of total retail sales, e-commerce captured 21.3% in 2020, a new record and a significant leap over 2019's 15.8%.

Source: Digital Commerce 360

As the economy has reopened, though, e-commerce's share of retail sales growth has been flattening.

Source: Department of Commerce

It appears as though e-commerce is cooling down and allowing physical store sales to catch up as people can get out and shop in person again.

For instance, in May 2021, online grocery sales (pickup or delivery) in the US came in at $7 billion, around a 16% drop from the $8.3 billion hit in May 2020. However, that is still three times higher than total US online grocery sales from August 2019.

This comes as major retailers like Amazon (AMZN), Walmart (WMT), and Kroger (KR) have announced plans to spend billions of dollars building out their e-commerce platforms and supply chains.

It's important to note here that this e-commerce investment does not indicate a desire to transition to direct-to-consumer delivery. That's one of the lowest margin retail sales channels, and retailers seem to be much more focused on developing omnichannel platforms to appeal to the widest possible customer base.

Consider, for instance, that Amazon is aggressively expanding its store count of Fresh grocery stores. These and its network of Whole Foods stores are integral to its plans for one-hour grocery delivery in cities across the nation.

Moreover, recent data from Placer.ai shows that grocery store foot traffic is returning to pre-pandemic trends of evening and weekend trips, indicating that people are returning to the office during weekdays. However, the length of trips is also increasing, indicating that people generally enjoy the experience of grocery shopping more in-person than online.

In any case, e-commerce and the availability of online price comparison should keep retail merchandising an extremely competitive industry and will likely cause a return to low inflation rates (or mild deflation) once the post-pandemic economy normalizes. Consider that more people use their smartphones to price compare in stores than to open that particular retailer's mobile app.

Source: Retail Dive, SmallBizTrends

Walmart, Target (TGT), and other national retailers have embraced price matching as a method of remaining competitive with e-commerce.

To my mind, this highlights the value of leasing to the largest and strongest retailers in the nation rather than local or regional retailers who may not have the financial capacity to compete with e-commerce.

Relentlessly quality-focused retail Agree Realty Corporation (ADC) has concentrated solely on national and super-regional retailers with the financial capacity to invest in their omnichannel platforms. These retailers are proof of the symbiotic relationship between strong omnichannel platforms and in-store shopping. On the back of strong growth in 2020, Walmart and Target have not only seen growth in their e-commerce offerings, they've enjoyed an uptick in in-store traffic as well.

Source: Placer.ai

Notice that from March through July, all months that compare to the pandemic/lockdown period in 2020, these two retailers showed YoY gains in customer monthly visits. Not only did they maintain their COVID-19 gains, they added to them!

To quote the Placer article:

In short, Walmart and Target may be proving that they possess the combination of brand strength, omnichannel breadth, and strategic agility necessary to thrive under almost any condition – even offline retail’s most challenging.

Highest Demand Ever For Net Lease

If the market for retail goods has become competitive, the market for net leased retail real estate has become even more competitive.

With billions of dollars flowing into institutional and private equity net lease funds, REITs ramping up their investment activity, and 1031 exchange buyers rushing to trade into low-maintenance net lease properties under the looming threat of a federal repeal of the 1031 rule, demand for net leased real estate has never been higher.

According to The Boulder Group, a net lease brokerage and research firm:

The supply of assets with long term leases to credit tenants remains limited. In the second quarter of 2021, only 22% of the property supply had more than 15 years of lease term remaining. Accordingly, cap rate compression for these assets exists in the current market. Demand for the perceived high-quality assets including McDonald’s, 7-Eleven and CVS heavily outweighs supply creating an extremely competitive market for these properties.

While cap rates for most property types have fallen, Boulder's data showed a slight uptick in closed transaction cap rates in Q2 because of the type of properties put on the market.

Significant competition for a limited amount of assets caused investors to seek alternatives in net lease. In a search for yield, some net lease investors have shifted focus to shorter team leases or tenants which were previously not in as high of demand (daycare, Rite Aid, etc.) in the first half of 2021. The increased demand for net lease assets has provided a boost to liquidity for more speculative assets.

During the pandemic, owners of highly COVID-sensitive properties like office buildings, fitness centers, restaurants, and movie theaters kept their properties off the market due to understandable lack of investor demand. Now that the economy has reopened and tenant finances have mostly stabilized, sellers are testing their luck on the market.

Source: Stan Johnson Q2 MarketSnapshot

Despite sales rebounding strongly from last year's low sales volume, a lack of supply is playing a large part in cap rate compression.

This lack of supply is caused partly by development delays due to COVID-19 and elevated construction costs. For instance, asking cap rates for dollar stores (82% of which are Dollar General's) dropped to 6.1% in Q2 2021, partially because of fewer property completions in the last six months. That's a nine basis point discount to the net lease market more broadly, compared to a 73-basis point discount in 2020.

According to brokerage and research firm Stan Johnson's Q2 Net Lease MarketSnapshot, "Buyer demand is substantial, but the amount of supply available continues to be extremely low."

Though sales cap rates were basically flat in Q2, that is largely due to the lower quality (higher cap rate) properties that have hit the market as liquidity returns.

Source: Stan Johnson Q2 MarketSnapshot

Interestingly, despite what seems like active investment from net lease REITs, their share of all single-tenant net lease transactions in the first half of the year is roughly half its normal level. This is entirely due to a huge increase in net lease investment from institutional buyers.

Source: Stan Johnson Q2 MarketSnapshot

Pension funds, insurance companies, university endowments, and other yield-hungry institutional investors are having a harder and harder time finding safe income elsewhere, which increases the attractiveness of net leased real estate.

Most of that institutional demand for net lease has channeled into office and industrial properties, as private investors continue to dominate the typically lower price point retail net lease market.

Source: Stan Johnson Q2 MarketSnapshot

It should be noted, however, that these charts only include single-tenant net lease transactions for which data is available. It does not include off-market deals or sale-leasebacks, two investment channels on which REITs rely heavily in their hunt for acquisitions.

Now is exactly the time that REITs should be leaning heavily into investment activity, as the spread between average cap rates and the 10-year Treasury rate has widened again coming into the summer months:

Source: Stan Johnson Q2 MarketSnapshot

Of course, this is especially true of REITs with the financial capacity to raise low-cost debt, since corporate bond yields tend to follow Treasury rates.

Merger Mania

In 2021, the combination of low interest rates and a scarcity of better investment opportunities has driven a merger mania in the net lease REIT space.

After initially announcing that they would be acquired by Equity Commonwealth (EQC), single-tenant net lease industrial REIT Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corp. (MNR) received a higher offer ($18.88 per share, all cash) from Starwood Real Estate Income Trust, a subsidiary of Barry Sternlicht's Starwood Capital Group.

Moreover, in late April, Realty Income announced a merger with diversified net lease giant VEREIT (VER), exchanging 0.705 shares of O for each share of VER. That equates to a VER valuation, currently, of $49.41 per share.

Most recently, casino REIT and Las Vegas landlord VICI Properties (VICI) announced a $17.2 billion deal to acquire MGM Growth Properties (MGP). This deal values MGP at $43 per share, a ~16% premium to its previous price, and an implied cap rate of 5.9% for its properties.

Source: MGP Acquisition Presentation

Notice that the Vereit acquisition was slightly larger in size and at a slightly higher cap rate. Notice also that the proposed acquisition of Monmouth Real Estate is much smaller and at a ~4.6% implied cap rate.

This pending acquisition of MGP is set to make VICI the largest net lease REIT by EBITDA, even after Realty Income's merger with VEREIT is completed. It also positions the Las Vegas landlord for inclusion in the S&P 500 index and an investment-grade credit rating. On top of all that, VICI will become by far the largest landlord of real estate on the famed Las Vegas strip.

Source: MGP Acquisition Presentation

Power players are making moves in the net lease REIT space, and it wouldn't be surprising to see more of it in the months and quarters to come.

Notable Net Lease News

Casino/Gaming

Picking up right where we left off on the casino/gaming front, the summer months have witnessed an incredible resurgence of activity in Las Vegas and at gaming facilities more broadly.

Visitor traffic in Las Vegas shot up by double digits MoM in May and crept up another 3.2% MoM in June. But the total was still 17.6% behind June 2019's numbers. However, June 2021 was the first month of lifted capacity restrictions, so the city's resurgence has really only just begun. As conferences and trade shows pick up again, Sin City's positive momentum will likely continue for years to come.

Movie Theaters

Likewise, cinemaholics are returning to movie theaters in order to enjoy recent tentpole releases like Black Widow and Jungle Cruise on the silver screen.

Image Source

For the full month of July, however, total domestic box office revenues came in at $582.2 million, more than 50% lower than August 2019's $1.288 billion, according to Box Office Mojo's data. Despite the trajectory of box office receipts moving in the right direction, this year is still shaping up to be a bad summer for theaters.

Landlords like Realty Income and EPR Properties (EPR), a net lease REIT with around half its portfolio in movie theaters, continue to advance the investment case for the property type since movie studios have no better way to monetize big-budget films. Here's a slide from a recent Realty Income presentation:

Source: Realty Income Q2 2021 Presentation

However, I continue to be bearish on the long-term prospects of movie theaters as a real estate investment. The trajectory seems to be clearly in the direction of more consumer optionality in how they watch new movies, whether through streaming or in theaters. Now that consumers have been given the option to purchase a one-time viewing of new movies at home, it will prove very difficult to take away.

In today's environment, studios must cater to consumer demands, not the other way around.

Moreover, with video game sales hitting new records and incredible volumes of media content available via numerous streaming services like Netflix (NFLX), it's much easier to be entertained at home than it once was. The competition for consumers' time and eyeballs - and money - is intense.

I'm not saying every movie theater will shutter, nor that all will suffer. Like malls, I envision a select number of movie theaters in great locations continuing to thrive, while less well-located theaters struggle on for a while. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, there were about 5,500 indoor movie theaters in operation in 2020. It would not surprise me to see that number halved by the end of 2030.

And what is a landlord to do if the theater tenant gives back the keys to that cavernous, single-use shell of a building? Surely the cost would be enormous to renovate it for an alternative use. And if the tenant vacates due to underperformance at that location, it's unlikely another theater tenant would be attracted to it.

Every net lease REIT will tell you that its theaters are the high-productivity, well-located ones - the ones that will survive and thrive. But in my view, that statement in aggregate is suspect, since REITs own so much theater real estate. It can't all be the best theater real estate!

One reason I favor Agree Realty over most other net lease REITs is its conscious decision over the last several years to dispose of most of its theater properties (of which it had few to begin with).

Source: ADC July Presentation

I continue to avoid EPR Properties and overweight REITs with less theater exposure like Agree Realty, W.P. Carey, NetStreit (NTST), and National Retail Properties (NNN).

Senior Housing and Care

There are three senior housing/care REITs that almost exclusively utilize net leases, and the performance divergence between them through COVID-19 is stark.

While National Health Investors (NHI) and LTC Properties (LTC) continue to struggle with tenant issues, lagging rent collection, and a growing list of deferrals, CareTrust REIT (CTRE) has proven why it's my largest senior care holding with a squeaky clean earnings report. FFO was in line, revenue beat expectations, 100% of contractual rent was collected, and management raised normalized FFO guidance from a range of $1.46 to $1.48 up to $1.48 to $1.50. And this is emblematic of CareTrust's stellar performance throughout the pandemic.

Of course, there's a crucial difference between the first two and CTRE: The type of facilities owned. While NHI is two-thirds senior housing and LTC is roughly 50% senior housing and 50% skilled nursing, CTRE is overwhelmingly geared toward skilled nursing.

To be clear, both types of facilities are in a far better place today to keep their residents safe and healthy. CTRE's Chairman and CEO Greg Stapley commented in the REIT's Q2 press release:

Not surprisingly, skilled nursing and seniors housing facilities, which were a favorite target for finger pointing in the early days of the pandemic, have today become some of the safest and healthiest places for vulnerable seniors and post-acute patients to be.

But senior housing/assisted living and skilled nursing/nursing homes were not impacted equally by the pandemic. The former was hurt much worse due to less need-based admissions, more abnormal expenses, and the lack of government support. As CareTrust's President and COO Dave Sedgwick explained,

While the skilled nursing providers have been thrown a lifeline in the form of provider relief funds and other measures, seniors housing providers have seen little to no government support to date despite the critical role they play in caring for our nation’s seniors.

Just when things were starting to look up for this sector of real estate, the Delta variant reared its ugly head. Now, we see multiple headlines like this one from The New York Times on Aug. 4:

Source: New York Times

Suddenly, senior housing and nursing homes seem like scary and dangerous places again - cesspools of viral spread.

But the reality is that the Delta variant, though real, is far less dangerous or lethal than the original strain of the virus, primarily because of vaccinations.

Up through the week of July 25, one can only barely detect a slight uptick in cases among nursing home residents:

Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Though some may point out that nursing home staff have lower rates of vaccinations than residents, it's important to note also that cases among staff members have barely ticked up as well.

Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

If the US follows the example set before us by the United Kingdom, then case growth will spike and then halve again in a matter of mere weeks. Admittedly, though, it could be a more drawn out process due to lower vaccination rates in the US than the UK.

In any case, as I argued in "Senior Housing and Skilled Nursing Are Coiled Springs," I believe the long-term case for the three REITs mentioned above is bright.

Buy Today

There are five net lease REITs that I would label as unequivocal "Buys" in today's market.

Company Name	Price / FFO	Dividend Yield
Agree Realty (ADC)	21.2x	3.52%
Realty Income (O)	20.4x	4.03%
National Retail Properties (NNN)	17.0x	4.49%
VICI Properties (VICI)	15.0x	4.83%
CareTrust REIT (CTRE)	15.1x	4.70%

Click to enlarge

As I explained in my review of ADC's Q2 earnings, this all-star net lease REIT is worthy of a premium valuation because of a confluence of factors that come together to make the finest retail real estate portfolio available to stock investors — along with rapid growth, of course.

Meanwhile, since O has definitively broken into "New Hunting Grounds In The U.K. And Europe," this gold standard REIT may yet have many more years of strong growth ahead.

NNN is a textbook steady-eddy dividend growth stock, as exemplified by its "32 Years And Counting" of consecutive annual dividend raises. The valuation is attractive, and it's a solid company.

VICI is perhaps the strongest buy in this list, as its acquisition of MGP positions it as a powerhouse casino landlord with ultra-long leases one one-of-a-kind properties on the Las Vegas strip as well as around the country. Buying at a 15x FFO multiple is simply a steal, in my opinion. Talk about a winning bet!

CTRE has proven itself a best-in-class skilled nursing REIT with a long growth runway, as I've argued here and here. The valuation only looks high compared to its problem-riddled and less-well-managed skilled nursing REIT peers.

Beyond these five names, there are another four names that offer higher yields and lower valuations in exchange for some calculated risks.

Company Name	Price/FFO	Dividend Yield
Alpine Income Property Trust (PINE)	13.1x	5.17%
Medical Properties Trust (MPW)	11.3x	5.68%
LTC Properties (LTC)	14.7x	6.51%
National Health Investors (NHI)	12.0x	5.76%

Click to enlarge

I find PINE compelling, despite its external management and the shorter lease terms of its recent acquisitions, because I think it's "Taking All The Right Steps" to prudently grow and earn a higher valuation. Management will be internalized eventually, and the office exposure is set to be sold, making PINE a pure-play retail net lease REIT.

Hospital landlord MPW has been a global growth machine, expanding its worldwide asset base at a rapid clip in the last five years. That has resulted in a build-up of debt, and the market didn't take the most recent $900 million+ acquisition very well. It will need to be funded mostly with equity issuance. Despite high debt and equity dilution, MPW will likely continue to perform well through its acquisition of high yield properties that have master leases with lots of landlord protections.

LTC and NHI can be addressed together since they suffer from similar maladies. Right now, tenant occupancy and financials are in the toilet for these two senior-oriented REITs. But the US population continues to age, supply growth of senior housing continues to slow, and the Delta variant is having less effect on senior centers than many people think. Valuations are attractive, especially for NHI.

Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of ADC, CTRE, LAND, LTC, MGP, MPW, NETL, NHI, NNN, NTST, O, PINE, VER, VICI, WPC either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.