REIT Equity Research Interview tomorrow - what to expect?

This interview notice came a bit last minute so any help would be greatly appreciated. So far, I’ve had a phone interview, did a modeling test of a REIT security to apply DCF and find a equity value per share. I’m now going to meet the research head and others in their office. I don’t have much experience in ER and zero experience with REITs. What kind of questions might be asked?

What’s your experience if you don’t mind me asking? How did you get the interview in the first place?

I know very little of REITs but I know interest rate risk is a concern for the industry now. I would understand their financing structure

whats popular right now is single family reits. lotta ipo i nthe last couple years. its drying up though. FFO is the multiple u want to have to analyze stuff.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/112204.asp

cfai curriculum has a nice section on reits in alt investments

the reading (and what i would be familiar with if i were you) takes you through the different types of reits (retail, office, storage, etc) and the most important economic drivers for each. for example - office reits depend heavily on job creation. obvious, yes, but definitely something you should familiarize yourself with

Go to the investor relations page of the following companies’ websites and read any of their investor presentations you can find. They are normally under the “events” section of the IR site.

Simon Property Group (this is viewed as a world-class REIT), Equity Residential, Vornado Realty, Boston Properties, Health Care REIT

Those presentations are made to equity analysts at large events, so it’s the stuff that companies think equity analysts will be most interested in. Becoming familiar with that stuff should be helpful.

Simon is currently going through a hostile takeover attempt of Macerich, so if you’re looking for timely information that’d be good to read up on b/c those are some major players in the space. If an interviewer asked you about that and you weren’t familiar with it, it’d signal to me that you’re not paying attention to REITs and/or aren’t interested in them and that wouldn’t be good.