5 real estate stocks to diversify with in May as the housing market accelerates

2024-05-10 11:54:55 ET

They say that one of life’s never-ending quests is the search for good real estate, and that certainly seems true for investors.

Owning a stake in an appreciable, high-value property can round out your investment portfolio in ways that trendier, louder stocks like big tech, with all their volatility, can’t. A good real estate investment is like a building itself – sturdy and secure, growing over time.

Here are the top five performing real estate stocks to watch in May 2024, in our opinion:

1. UMH Properties (UMH)

2. PLC Grainger

3. Sobha Ltd

4. Cushman and Wakefield

5. Godrej Properties Ltd

1. Properties of UMH

UMH is an American public equity real estate investment trust (REIT) specializing in manufactured homes and communities. The company has been in business since 1968 and, with a market capitalization of $73.3 billion, is one of the largest real estate businesses in the US.

What the UMH business does is provide a ready-made community for its owners and tenants. The gated nature of manufactured homes and the neighborhoods they are located in have been popular and likely will continue to be for decades to come.

UMH is known for their attractive dividends and its share price has performed quite well of late. Shares of UMH are up 4.45% in the past month, 6.86% this year so far and 1.5% over the past year.

2. Grainger PLC

Headquartered in the UK, Grainger PLC is considered the UK’s largest residential landlord. The LSE-listed company offers professionally managed rental homes across England, where real estate is at a premium.

Grainger has a market cap of £2 billion and has also performed reasonably well over the past year. The company’s share price is up 6.2% in the past month, 2.3% this year to date and just over 6% over the past year.

3. Sobha Ltd

Multinational company Sobha Limited is a real estate firm with a market capitalization of over 161 billion Indian Rupees (INR) and is headquartered in Bangalore, India as well as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

India has been on a winning streak for several years now, with the rapid expansion and development of its economy accompanied by quantum leaps in the value of its most valuable stocks.

Sobha is a prime example, with the kind of stock market returns that those in developed countries can only dream of. The company’s stock price is up 66.6% so far in 2024 and 237.5% over the past year.

4. Cushman & Wakefield

Cushman & Wakefield is one of the world’s largest commercial real estate businesses, with headquarters in several countries, including the UK, India and its home base of the United States.

The company has a whopping $2.39 billion market cap, and while it doesn’t currently pay a dividend, Cushman & Wakefield is one of the best performing US real estate companies in a very tough US real estate market.

Its stock price is up 2.96% in the past month, down just 2.34% so far this year (compare with Zillow, which is down more than 24% in 2024) and up 33% in last year.

5. Godrej Properties Ltd

Also in India, Mumbai and Delhi, Godrej real estate group is a real estate company that deals in commercial, residential and industrial properties. It is also a subsidiary company of the mammoth Godrej group which covers various areas like consumer goods, home appliances, agriculture and many more apart from property.

Like Sobha, Godrej has seen amazing appreciation in its share price. These included a rise of 0.89% this month and 34.62% this year to date. In the past year, its share price has doubled, rising 101.22% in one year.

It’s also typically a loyal dividend payer, although it didn’t pay any for the last quarter (Q4 of 2023).

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