Ra Ra RRRREITS Report

Residential

The Commerce Department reported housing starts rose .8% in March, to an annual pace of 1.52 million-a large drop from February’s 7.6% increase although much larger than analysts had expected. Building permits increased as well to an annual rate of 1.54 million in March from 1.53 million in February. Analysts, however, believe the industry is still tenuous and will not show signs of bottoming for months. In morning trading, Toll Brothers Inc.’s shares rose 1.6%, KB Home shares rose 3.6%, Beazer Homes USA Inc. shares rose 2.7% and Lennar Corp. shares rose 2.4%.

Commercial

Maguire Properties Inc. is selling five office properties in Orange County properties to Bixby Land Co. for about $345 million. The properties are from the Equity Office Properties portfolio which it bought from Blackstone Group.

Leaders in Price Performance (Intraday)
CORP OFFICE PPTY TR [ofc]
+2.42%
BRANDYWINE REALTY TR [bdn]
+2.04%
MACK-CALI REALTY CP [cli]
+1.64%
BIOMED REALTY TRUST [bmr]
+1.42%
BOSTON PPTYS INC [bxp]
+1.42%
LIBERTY PROPERTIES [lry]
+1.32%
MAGUIRE PROPERTIES [mpg]
+1.30%
ALEXANDRIA RL EST EQ [are]
+1.27%
HRPT PROPERTIES [hrp]
+1.12%
MISSION WEST PTY NEW [msw]
+0.76%

Laggards in Price Performance (Intraday)
REPUBLIC PROPERTY TR [rpb] -0.86%