The 12.17 percent one-year compound annual return for the NAREIT Equity REIT Index outperformed the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial, Russell 2000 and NASDAQ indexes. The NAREIT Composite Index also topped the major indexes, posting a total return of 8.29 percent for 2005.
Even more notable, the NAREIT Equity Index as a whole outperformed the aforementioned indexes over the one-year, five-year, 10-year and 30-year periods, underlining that fact that REIT performance has been strong and reliable over the long term (as shown in the table below).
As for individual property sectors, the self-storage sector was tops in 2005, posting a 26.6 percent total return. Next on the list were regional mall and industrial sectors with a 16.5 percent and 15.4 percent total return, respectively.
