Listed property beats cash

Johannesburg - Income payouts by listed properties are still growing at a healthy 8.4% on average, making the sector a better bet for income chasers than cash or bonds, analysts said.

Catalyst Fund Managers' latest monthly overview of the JSE's R95bn listed property sector showed that most companies that reported results in August are still delivering inflation-beating income (distribution) growth. That's despite the fact that it's becoming increasingly difficult to find tenants for new shopping centres, offices, factories and warehouses.

Catalyst Fund Managers' MD André Stadler said although distribution growth has slowed over the past year on the back of rising vacancies and slower rental growth, investors can still earn better income yields on listed property than on cash and bonds.

Stadler said assuming average distribution growth of 8.5% over the next 12 months, listed property offered an initial forward yield of around 9.47%. This compares favourably to a 12-month deposit rate of around 7% on cash and the yield to maturity of 8.8% on the RSA Long-Term Gilt.

More importantly, though, is that the income payouts by listed property companies have the potential to grow whereas the income offered by bonds does not.

Thabo Motloung, listed property analyst at Old Mutual Investment Group, expressed a similar sentiment. He said property stocks have proved to be quite defensive over the past year, beating not only cash and bonds but also general equities.

Motloung's figures showed that listed property has produced a total return (income and capital growth) of 14.3% in the 12 months to end-August 2009 and a pre-tax income (dividend) yield of 8.4%. That compares to the JSE Alsi's total return of -2.8% and a post-tax dividend yield of 3.3% over the same period.

Listed property also outperformed bonds, with the latter returning 12.3% for the year to end-August. Motloung forecast a total return of 15% for listed property over the next 12 months. He cautioned that a significant increase in vacancies does pose a risk to this forecast.

He, however, believed it is unlikely that vacancies will rise significantly from current levels, with the amount of empty floor space in most property portfolios still below 5%.

Although analysts expected income growth from listed property to average between 8% and 9% over the next 12 months, the performance gap between individual property funds is set to widen further. The message to listed property investors seems clear: stock picking is now the name of the game.

The top performers in terms of income growth for the June reporting period were Resilient Property Income Fund (15.12%), Capital Property Fund (14.67%), Pangbourne Properties (10.52%) and Emira Property Fund (10%). The worst performing counters were Hospitality B (-8.1%) and SA Corporate Real Estate Fund (-0.35%).

- Fin24.com