NAREIT Board Rings Bell at NYSE

New York—In celebration of the 50th anniversary of REITs, members of the executive board of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) were invited to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange today.

REITs were created by Congress under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 and have consistently generated strong returns for investors. The U.S. REIT industry has grown into a marketplace of 150 companies involved in ownership and financing of all commercial property types.

The FTSE NAREIT Equity REIT Index, since its inception in 1972, has yielded a cumulative total return of 8,035 percent. U.S. equity REITs have strongly outpaced the S&P 500 over the last 10 years, delivering a compound annual return of 11.38 percent, compared to negative 0.02 percent for the S&P 500.

The industry’s equity market capitalization as of October 31 was $349 billion, $345 billion of which was represented by NYSE-listed companies.