The Best REITs to Buy

Real estate investment trusts typically offer high yields, making them appealing choices for income investors. REITs are interest rate-sensitive, meaning they tend to outperform the broad market when interest rates fall and underperform when rates rise.

In the year to date, the Morningstar US Real Estate Index rose 7.21%, while the Morningstar US Total Market Index gained 13.69%.

The 12 Best REIT Stocks to Buy Now

These were the most undervalued REIT stocks that Morningstar’s analysts cover as of Oct. 27, 2026.

1. BXP BXP
2. Invitation Homes INVH
3. Healthpeak Properties DOC
4. Kilroy Realty KRC
5. Uniti Group UNIT
6. SBA Communications SBAC
7. Lineage LINE
8. Americold Realty Trust COLD
9. Federal Realty Investment Trust FRT
10. Equity Lifestyle Properties ELS
11. Realty Income O
12. Crown Castle CCI

To come up with our list of the best REIT stocks to buy now, we screened for:

• REIT stocks that are undervalued, as measured by our price/fair value metric.
• Stocks that earn narrow or wide Morningstar Economic Moat Ratings, as well as companies that do not have a moat. We think companies with narrow economic moat ratings can fight off competitors for at least 10 years; wide-moat companies should remain competitive for 20 years or more.
• Stocks that earn a Low, Medium, High, or Very High Morningstar Uncertainty Rating, which captures the range of potential outcomes for a company’s fair value.

Here’s a little more about each of the best REIT stocks to buy, including commentary from the Morningstar analysts who cover each company. All data is as of Oct. 27, 2026.

BXP

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.64
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: High
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 4.60%
• Industry: REIT—Office

BXP holds the first spot as the least expensive company on our list of the best REITs to buy, trading 36% below our fair value estimate of $95 per share. BXP owns 164 properties consisting of approximately 51.1 million rentable square feet of space. It offers a forward dividend yield of 4.60%.

BXP develops, owns, and manages Class A office properties that are mainly concentrated in six markets: Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. It owns 164 properties consisting of approximately 51.1 million rentable square feet of space, which includes six properties currently under construction.

The company’s strategy is to develop and own premier properties that maintain high occupancy rates and achieve premium rental rates through economic cycles in supply-constrained markets that have the strongest economic growth and investment characteristics for office real estate. Management has also outlined its policies on capital recycling to ensure continuous portfolio refreshment and value creation while maintaining a strong balance sheet and having adequate access to capital to take advantage of opportunistic situations. We welcome management’s focus on ESG as it aligns its office portfolio to meet clients’ sustainability requirements.

The economic uncertainty resulting from the pandemic recovery and the remote work dynamic created a challenging environment for owners of office real estate. Employees are still hesitant to return to the office; office utilization remains at approximately 50%-55% of the prepandemic level. The net absorption rate remained negative in 2025, and rental growth figures remain disappointing, especially after adjusting for inflation. Having said this, we are seeing an increasing number of companies requiring their employees to return to the office. In the long run, we believe that remote work and hybrid remote work will gain increasing acceptance, but offices will continue to be the centerpiece of workplace strategy and will play an essential role in facilitating collaboration, harnessing innovation, and maintaining the company culture.

Read more about BXP here.

Invitation Homes

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.66
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 4.41%
• Industry: REIT—Residential

Next on our list of the best REITs to invest in now, Invitation Homes invests in the residential industry. Invitation Homes owns a portfolio of over 85,000 single-family rental homes. This cheap REIT stock trades 34% below our fair value estimate of $41 per share.

Invitation Homes is the largest single-family rental real estate investment trust, with a portfolio of over 86,000 homes. The portfolio is geographically diversified across 17 US markets with approximately 35% of its homes in the Western US, 31% in Florida, and 22% in other Southeastern markets. The cost of renting is lower than homeownership in most of the portfolio’s markets, which supports high occupancy and should allow the company to pass along significant rent increases without much pushback. The company’s size gives it some economies of scale in terms of controlling costs as it can hire its own maintenance and repair technicians to service its homes, allowing it to maintain higher operating margins than smaller competitors that need to contract out the same services. The company regularly recycles capital by selling noncore assets and using the proceeds on higher-quality acquisitions with better growth prospects.

Invitation Homes focuses on owning newer homes in the starter and move-up segments, which are typically around $375,000 in price and less than 1,800 square feet. These homes typically attract a younger demographic. This coincides with a generation of millennials who have long delayed many adult milestones but started to move to the suburbs during the pandemic. Given that millennials typically lack the necessary capital for a down payment, many have chosen to rent single-family homes when they move to the suburbs.

However, the postpandemic bump to demand appears to have finally ended as occupancy has fallen to the historical average for the sector and rent increases are becoming harder to push through onto tenants. We also worry that the sector faces future headwinds when the baby boomers eventually return their housing stock to the market. The increased supply will either lower housing prices to the point that renters can afford to purchase a home or create new rental housing stock that will compete with Invitation Homes’ portfolio. Ultimately, we don’t think the single-family rental market will support growth above inflationary increases.

Read more about Invitation Homes here.

Healthpeak Properties

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.69
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 6.41%
• Industry: REIT—Healthcare Facilities

Healthpeak operates in the healthcare facilities industry. The stock has a forward dividend yield of 6.41% and trades 31% below our fair value estimate of $27.50 per share.

The top healthcare real estate stands to benefit disproportionately from the Affordable Care Act. With an increased focus on higher-quality care being performed in lower-cost settings, the best owners and operators in the industry, which can provide better outcomes while driving greater efficiencies, should see demand funneled to them from the best healthcare systems. Additionally, the baby boomer generation is entering its senior years, and the 80-plus population, an age group that spends more than 4 times as much on healthcare per capita as the national average, should almost double in size over the next 10 years. In the long term, the best healthcare companies are well-positioned to capitalize on these industry tailwinds.

Given the significant challenges the coronavirus pandemic posed to the senior housing industry, Healthpeak made the strategic decision in 2020 to dispose of most of its senior housing assets in multiple transactions, yielding approximately $4 billion in total proceeds. As a result, Healthpeak’s life science and medical office portfolios are now prominently featured in the company’s portfolio, as the proceeds from the senior housing sales were reinvested into these two sectors. Healthpeak has high-quality assets in top markets that attract credit-grade tenants in both segments, so we believe it makes sense to strategically focus the company on the segments where it has an advantage. The company also completed a $5 billion merger with Physicians Realty Trust in March 2024, adding 16 million square feet of high-quality medical office buildings that complement the company’s portfolio. Following the merger, Healthpeak derives approximately 50% of its net operating income from medical office assets, 35% from life science assets, and 15% from senior housing assets (Healthpeak spun the remaining senior housing portfolio into Janus Living in March 2026, retaining a 73.6% ownership interest). Despite the possibility of further changes to the ACA, we think any changes will still result in a coordinated value- and outcome-based system that will provide Healthpeak’s current portfolio with strong tailwinds.

Read more about Healthpeak Properties here.

Kilroy Realty

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.72
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: High
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 6.00%
• Industry: REIT—Office

Kilroy Realty is a premier owner and landlord of approximately 17.1 million square feet of office space across Los Angeles; San Diego; the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Texas; and greater Seattle. Kilroy Realty is 28% undervalued relative to our $50 fair value estimate. This cheap REIT stock operates in the office industry and offers a 6.00% forward dividend yield.

Kilroy Realty owns, develops, acquires, and manages premier office, life science, and mixed-use real estate properties in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin. The firm has positioned itself to benefit from the burgeoning life sciences sector with material exposure in its current portfolio and future development pipeline. We also welcome management’s focus on ESG as it aligns its office portfolio to meet the sustainability requirements of its clients.

Kilroy had been able to time the boom in technological employment occurring in the largest metropolitan areas along the West Coast, but the West Coast office markets have been exceptionally weak in the past five years. The company’s strategy is to achieve durable long-term growth by developing and owning the highest-quality real estate in technology and life science market clusters. Its portfolio quality is evident from the fact that its average age is about 12 years compared with 30 years for peers.

Economic uncertainty as a result of the pandemic recovery and remote work created a challenging environment for office owners. Employees are still hesitant about returning to the office as office utilization remains around 50%-55% of the prepandemic level. The company reported vacancy rates of 27.5% and 24.7% in Los Angeles and San Francisco office markets, respectively, in second-quarter 2026. The current vacancy rate in both of these cities is substantially higher than the vacancy rates during the height of the global financial crisis. The net absorption rate in West Coast markets remains negative, and rental growth figures are disappointing, especially after adjusting for inflation. While the West Coast office environment remains challenging, artificial intelligence-driven growth in the region belies hope for office owners.

We are seeing an increasing number of companies requiring their employees to return to the office. In the long run, we believe that hybrid remote work solutions will gain increasing acceptance, but offices will continue to be the centerpiece of workplace strategy and will play an essential role in facilitating collaboration, harnessing innovation, and maintaining culture.

Read more about Kilroy Realty here.

Uniti Group

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.73
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Very High
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 0.00%
• Industry: REIT—Specialty

Uniti is the product of the August 2025 merger of the firm with Windstream, its former primary customer. This REIT stock operates in the specialty industry. The stock has a forward dividend yield of 0.00% and trades 27% below our fair value estimate of $7 per share.

Uniti’s legacy Windstream telecom business, known as Kinetic, is rapidly converting its old copper-based networks to fiber, following the same path as other phone companies. Undertaking this capital-intensive effort with revenue in decline will cause the firm to burn cash, likely for at least the next couple of years, adding to its already sizable debt load. The new fiber network would be attractive to several larger telecom firms, but we suspect Uniti will need to stabilize revenue before it can command a premium for the business.

Kinetic generates nearly 60% of Uniti’s revenue, with about 75% of that coming from the residential and small-business telecom market. Uniti is building fiber to new premises to compete with the cable companies and fixed-wireless alternatives. We estimate that it has built fiber to a bit more than 40% of the locations in its service territory, and it plans to take that up to around 75% by the end of the decade. The Kinetic business is shrinking as the pace of fiber broadband growth hasn’t yet offset the rate of decline in legacy broadband and phone services. Uniti will need to maintain strict pricing discipline to earn an acceptable return on capital. Even then, we expect it will take most of the next decade to generate economic profits, and a lot could change over that time.

The bulk of Uniti’s remaining business is focused on providing very high-capacity fiber network connections to enterprises in tier 2 and tier 3 markets. Uniti says that 75% of its footprint will be in markets with fewer than 20,000 households. The firm owns about 240,000 route miles of fiber nationally, connecting to about 325,000 commercial buildings, including data centers. Connecting unique locations with differentiated routes should provide Uniti with an advantage, but dozens of firms own and are building fiber to serve large enterprises and wholesale customers, and we expect fierce competition to meet the bulk of demand.

Legacy managed telecom services contribute 20% of revenue. We expect this segment to continue to decline quickly, while largely variable costs allow the business to be harvested for cash.

Read more about Uniti Group here.

SBA Communications

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.74
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: Narrow
• Forward Dividend Yield: 2.71%
• Industry: REIT—Specialty

SBA Communications owns a portfolio of about 46,000 wireless towers throughout North America, South America, and Africa. This REIT stock operates in the specialty industry. The stock has a forward dividend yield of 2.71% and trades 26% below our fair value estimate of $250 per share.

SBA Communications has been more cautious than its tower peers in pursuing acquisitions and investing in its business, helping it avoid overpaying for assets and generating somewhat stronger returns on capital. However, it has repurchased shares far more aggressively than others, often at inflated prices. We expect heavy repurchases will continue but also believe the stock is now trading at a reasonable valuation, even with shares moving higher on takeout speculation. In addition, we think SBA’s deal to acquire towers from Millicom and build new sites for the carrier in Latin America will generate solid growth. Still, we wouldn’t bank on a buyout and would favor peers trading at cheaper valuations.

Wireless infrastructure plays a critical role in wireless networks, and this position is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. Annual rent escalators provide a baseline for revenue growth. Growing data usage pushes the wireless carriers to expand the use of existing towers, further increasing rents, and deploy new sites. When a new site is built on an existing structure, the incremental return on investment for the tower owner is usually very high, as operating costs are mostly fixed.

About 40% of SBA’s towers are in the US, accounting for about 70% of site leasing revenue. The US market is highly profitable and low-risk relative to other countries, but it is also mature. The three major US wireless carriers account for nearly 90% of US leasing revenue. While US network expansion is cyclical, this market should deliver consistent mid-single-digit growth.

SBA has invested heavily internationally, but has reshaped its portfolio recently. It has exited Canada and the Philippines, where it lacked critical mass, and has expanded in Latin America. Brazil is SBA’s largest market outside the US, accounting for more than 10% of revenue. That market has been challenged for several years due to carrier consolidation, and we don’t expect improvement in the near term as the remaining carriers rationalize their networks. But the Millicom deal brings exposure to very stable telecom markets, notably Guatemala, where Millicom and America Movil are the only major carriers.

Read more about SBA Communications here.

Lineage

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.75
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: High
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 6.02%
• Industry: REIT—Industrial

Structured as a REIT that just went public in 2024, Lineage is an owner and operator of temperature-controlled warehouses. The stock is 25% undervalued relative to our $47 fair value estimate. This cheap REIT stock operates in the industrial industry and offers a 6.02% forward dividend yield.

Lineage is the world’s largest temperature-controlled warehouse REIT, operating 501 facilities spanning 3.1 billion cubic feet of capacity across 19 countries. The firm generates profits primarily through two business segments: global warehousing, which accounts for 86% of net operating income, and global integrated solutions, which comprises the other 14% of NOI. Within warehousing, revenue stems from storage fees, increasingly structured under fixed minimum volume guarantees to lock in predictable cash flows, and handling services such as case-picking and blast freezing. The integrated solutions segment complements storage by offering end-to-end logistics, including less-than-truckload transportation consolidation, customs brokerage, and railcar leasing, capturing value across the broader food supply chain.

The firm’s strategy centers on leveraging its unmatched global scale, modern asset portfolio, and strategic port and inland network density to improve its operating leverage. A key differentiator in its value proposition is proprietary technology, spearheaded by LinOS—a warehouse operating system driving labor productivity and energy efficiency to generate approximately $110 million in annualized EBITDA gains. Crucially, Lineage is significantly more acquisitive than Americold, the second-largest cold-storage REIT. While Americold has historically taken a more traditional operational approach, Lineage has systematically consolidated a fragmented global market, executing 126 acquisitions since 2008, 85 of which since 2020, backed by a 500-step integration playbook.

We maintain a generally favorable view regarding Lineage’s strategy, yet industry headwinds are abundant. The business currently faces near-term cyclical friction, including postpandemic inventory destocking, occupancy pressure, localized market oversupply, labor inflation, and tariff volatility. Nevertheless, Lineage’s preleased development pipeline, commercial pricing power, and digital operational engine provide resilient long-term tailwinds as macro conditions normalize.

Read more about Lineage here.

Americold Realty Trust

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.76
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 6.40%
• Industry: REIT—Industrial

Next on our list of the best REITs to invest in now, Americold Realty Trust invests in the industrial industry. Structured as a REIT, Americold is an owner and operator of temperature-controlled warehouses. This cheap REIT stock trades 24% below our fair value estimate of $19 per share.

Americold Realty Trust is the world’s second-largest temperature-controlled warehouse REIT, operating 224 facilities and over 1.4 billion cubic feet across the globe. The warehouse segment is responsible for over 90% of revenue and an even higher percentage of profits, while the transportation segment serves as a supplement that improves client monetization. The firm has taken strides to improve revenue stability through the cycle by expanding its prevalence of fixed-commitment contracts and inking longer duration contracts, now representing 58% of storage revenue and a weighted-average stated term of eight years, up from 42% and six years in 2020.

The firm is notably less acquisitive than Lineage, its chief competitor, with a strategy comparably more focused on improving the network density of its footprint to increasingly cater toward retail and quick-service restaurants, improving profitability as these fast-growing verticals require more complex, high-touch value-added services than traditional, passive storage, increasing net operating income per pallet. Nevertheless, Americold remains selectively opportunistic when strategic assets or capital opportunities arise, such as the transformative Agro Merchants Group acquisition, which substantially bolstered its European presence, in addition to its recent $1.3 billion EQT joint venture, which unlocked over $1.1 billion and was used primarily to deleverage its balance sheet. Americold is deploying Project Orion, a digital transformation that standardizes global processes, enhances contract governance, and optimizes pricing analytics, to drive structural margin improvement.

We maintain a generally constructive view regarding Americold’s strategy, yet industry headwinds are abundant, with US capacity oversupply, inventory destocking, and cost inflation continuing to weigh on near-term results. Nevertheless, the benefits associated with increased fixed-contract protections, balance sheet deleveraging, Project Orion-derived efficiencies, and disciplined organic growth should become more transparent as conditions normalize.

Read more about Americold here.

Federal Realty Investment Trust

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.76
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 4.23%
• Industry: REIT—Retail

Federal Realty Investment Trust is a shopping center-focused REIT that owns high-quality properties in eight of the largest metropolitan markets. It is 24% undervalued relative to our $145 fair value estimate. This cheap REIT stock operates in the retail industry and offers a 4.23% forward dividend yield.

Federal Realty is a retail-based real estate investment trust that focuses on owning and operating high-quality shopping centers and mixed-use assets in eight of the largest metropolitan areas. It has strategically acquired and developed assets in submarkets with strong demand drivers, creating a portfolio with average location population density and median household income higher than any other retail REIT. As a result, Federal Realty has been able to drive strong same-store net operating income growth and average double-digit re-leasing spreads over the past two decades. Its portfolio should continue to attract shoppers and tenants and produce solid internal growth even in a challenging retail environment.

E-commerce continues to pressure brick-and-mortar retail as consumers increasingly move their shopping habits online. Still, many of Federal’s tenants must directly compete with the growth of e-commerce, but much of the portfolio is insulated from online competition. Segments such as grocery stores, restaurants, fitness centers, and other service-based businesses continue to drive traffic to physical retail centers. Despite competition from e-commerce, location remains paramount for retailers. Retailers are becoming more selective with their physical locations, opting to locate storefronts in the highest-quality assets while closing stores in low-productivity sites. Thus, we expect Federal’s portfolio to remain in demand despite the changing retail environment.

While Federal Realty had to deal with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic for several years, fundamentals have since recovered. Shopping at many brick-and-mortar locations declined as some consumers shifted purchases to e-commerce platforms, though foot traffic returned to prepandemic levels during the summer of 2021. Although occupancy dropped in 2020, it has since exceeded 2019 levels, and re-leasing spreads have been in the double-digits since 2023. We believe that high-quality retail locations will continue to produce tenant sales and rent growth above the national average, occupancy should stabilize at current levels, and re-leasing spreads will be in the low double digits for many years.

Read more about Federal Realty Investment Trust here.

Equity Lifestyle Properties

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.76
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 3.65%
• Industry: REIT—Residential

Equity Lifestyle Properties is a residential REIT that focuses on owning manufactured housing, residential vehicle communities, and marinas. Equity Lifestyle Properties is 24% undervalued relative to our $78 fair value estimate. This cheap REIT stock operates in the residential industry and offers a 3.65% forward dividend yield.

Equity Lifestyle Properties is a residential REIT that focuses on owning manufactured housing, residential vehicle communities, and marinas. The company has a portfolio of 453 properties across the US with a higher concentration in the Sun Belt; 38% of its properties are in Florida, 11% in Arizona, and 10% in California. Equity Lifestyle targets owning properties in attractive retirement destinations. More than 70% of its properties are either age-restricted or have an average resident age over 55.

Equity Lifestyle mainly collects rental income from tenants. The tenants own their own manufactured homes, residential vehicles, and boats but then pay Equity Lifestyle for the right to place their home or park their vehicle in the community. The rental income is consistent through the year for the manufactured housing portfolio and RV properties with annual memberships, but there is significant seasonality to the transient RV properties and the marina portfolio. Equity Lifestyle also collects revenue from the sale of manufactured homes and provides services to the communities, though these activities represent a much smaller portion of total EBITDA.

The sector has benefited from an aging population with a desire to own a second home or the time to go on regular vacations. The growth in the older-than-60 population over the past two decades has supported rent growth that exceeds both inflation and the average rent growth reported by the multifamily REIT sector. While we anticipate that the growth of this demographic will support continued rent growth above inflation, we believe that demand growth won’t be as strong as the baby boomer generation has started to turn 80, which is when we believe that people age out of the target demographic for manufactured housing. Additionally, the transient business has declined since the start of 2023, though the annual membership business has produced same-store revenue growth above 5% for the last five years. Therefore, while we believe that internal growth will remain solid for several years, we don’t think it will match the heights the company achieved over the past decade.

Read more about Equity Lifestyle Properties here.

Realty Income

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.77
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Low
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Forward Dividend Yield: 5.73%
• Industry: REIT—Retail

Realty Income owns roughly 15,600 properties, most of which are freestanding, single-tenant, triple-net-leased retail properties. Realty Income is 23% undervalued relative to our $74 fair value estimate. This cheap REIT stock operates in the retail industry and offers a 5.73% forward dividend yield.

Realty Income is the largest triple-net REIT in the US, with over 15,500 properties that mainly house retail tenants. It describes itself as “The Monthly Dividend Company,” and its line of business and operating metrics make its dividend one of the most stable sources of income for investors. Even though about 80% of Realty Income’s tenants are in retail, most are focused on defensive segments, with characteristics such as being service-oriented, naturally protected against e-commerce pressures, or resistant to economic downturns. Additionally, the triple-net lease structure places the burden of all operational risk and cost on the tenant and requires the tenant to make capital expenditures to maintain the property rather than the landlord. These leases are often long term, frequently 15 years with additional extension options, which provides Realty Income a steady stream of rental income. Coverage ratios are also very high, so tenants are healthy and unlikely to request rent concessions, even during downturns. The steady, stable stream of revenue has allowed Realty Income to be one of only two REITs to be members of the S&P High-Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index and have a credit rating of A- or better. This makes Realty Income one of the most dependable investments for income-oriented investors.

Stability comes at the cost of economic profit, however. The lease terms include very low annual rent increases around 1%, which helps keep the coverage ratio high but severely limits internal growth for the company. Therefore, to grow, Realty Income must rely on acquisitions. The company has executed over $40 billion in acquisitions since the start of 2021 at average cap rates near 7%. However, rising interest rates over the past three years have increased the cost to fund external growth. While the company was able to maintain a consistent acquisition cap rate spread above interest rates on debt, we are concerned that the company won’t be able to continuously find deals at high cap rates and Realty Income will be left with just a low internal growth story.

Read more about Realty Income here.

Crown Castle

• Morningstar Price/Fair Value: 0.78
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: Narrow
• Forward Dividend Yield: 4.84%
• Industry: REIT—Specialty

Crown Castle rounds out our list of the best REITs to buy, trading at a 22% discount to our $113 fair value estimate. Crown Castle owns or manages nearly 40,000 wireless towers in the US. This affordable REIT stock focuses on specialty and offers a 4.84% forward dividend yield.

Crown Castle’s efforts to build fiber networks and promote small cells to wireless carriers ended with poor returns on capital. The firm wisely, in our view, sold this fiber business in May 2026, becoming a pure US wireless tower operator. The firm’s tower infrastructure is critical to the functioning of US wireless networks, but we don’t expect the three major US carriers to drive much new growth in the coming years. SpaceX could provide a spurt of demand, but we believe it is premature to assume it builds a substantial traditional terrestrial wireless network.

Crown Castle now plans to use most of its cash flow to fund its dividend, largely forgoing major growth investments. The firm maintains a portfolio of roughly 40,000 towers that require minimal capital investment to maintain, allowing for consistent modest cash flow growth. While growth has taken a step back in 2026 owing to the loss of Dish Wireless/EchoStar revenue, no other sizable customer is likely to abandon Crown Castle’s towers en masse from here.

Wireless carriers lease space on towers to install antennas and other communication equipment to power their networks. Fixed annual rent escalators of roughly 2%-3% provide a baseline for growth. Additionally, carriers regularly add new equipment to tower sites, increasing rents. Finally, Crown Castle can often locate more than one carrier on a tower, providing operating leverage. If a tower requires incremental infrastructure to support new equipment, carriers often agree to prepay some rent to fund this investment.

We expect towers to continue to provide the foundation on which mobile communications networks depend for broad coverage, and serve as the easiest means of deploying new spectrum bands that become available in the years ahead. That said, we believe that the three major US carriers are already well-represented on Crown Castle’s towers and that incremental demand from them will be modest. With limited growth opportunities, we expect Crown Castle to deliver increasing returns to shareholders, with a well-funded dividend and the flexibility to repurchase shares.

Read more about Crown Castle here.

How to Find More of the Best REIT Stocks to Buy

Investors who’d like to extend their search for top REIT stocks can do the following:

• Review Morningstar’s comprehensive list of real estate stocks to investigate further.
• Stay up to date on the real estate sector’s performance, key earnings reports, and more with Morningstar’s real estate sector page.
• Read Morningstar’s Guide to Stock Investing to learn how our approach to investing can inform your stock-picking process.
• Use the Morningstar Investor screener to build a shortlist of REIT stocks to research and watch.