Published in Business Venture· October 2009 -
Not if you're an investor in Skyline Apartment REIT and you're currently earning a 9% annual distribution on your investment. It is paid out on the 15th of every month like clockwork. As most people seem to be slowly recovering from the hard hit investment portfolios took over the past year, Skyline's investors unwaveringly experienced significant growth and steady returns.
In fact, since Skyline became a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust), its investors have never lost a penny. So, in addition to the consistent 9% distribution that original investors continue to earn, their capital investment has also grown 10% as the unit price increased from $10 to $11.
Since distributions are paid at 9% on the current unit value, those original investors are actually currently receiving an annual distribution of 9.9%. So what's the catch? How has this local private REIT with small-town roots and big aspirations come to be? Well, it was almost 20 years ago that two brothers and their college friend got together to buy a student rental in Guelph just to make a little extra money to help pay tuition. Today, that little property management and real estate investment business is made up of a portfolio of apartment buildings and commercial space spread out across four Canadian provinces and valued at nearly $500 million.
But why apartments you might ask? Well, for starters they are income producing as they generate rental income. Further to this, when times are good, people move out on their own and rent apartments and when times are bad, people can't afford to buy a home so they rent an apartment instead. Apartments are pretty close to being recession-resistant, especially the ones that Skyline owns in niche secondary markets where the supply is low and demand is high.
Skyline also manages all of its own properties and even heads up all new acquisition and investor relations activities in-house. There are no broker fees to invest with Skyline, which means that their investors are truly investing at the source.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can invest in real estate and enjoy the benefits of rental income without the headaches of being a landlord, we encourage you to attend one of Skyline's upcoming information sessions. There you will hear first hand from Jason Castellan, CEO/Co-Founder and Wayne Byrd, CFO, what Skyline is all about.
