REITs investing offers the best of both worlds – dividends and growth. As investors, it’s common to pick REITs based on the latest REIT sector data and financial data from annual reports. If you wish to gain an edge over your fellow retail investors, I strongly suggest conducting your own site visits at the actual properties. This guide gives you an introduction to Retail Site Visits. In the following sections, I cover: Although I’m using Retail Malls as an example, you can easily extrapolate the thought process for any accessible properties under your desired REIT.

Why conduct site visits?

Many practitioners tout themselves as being real estate experts, crunching numbers in their ivory towers and purporting to understand complexities of the industry. But can you really understand real estate without visiting the actual property? Would you trust a surgeon who performs only a few operations every year? On the ground knowledge versus ivory towers...