Sector
Real Estate sector explained
Companies that own, develop or manage buildings and land, such as offices, apartments, warehouses, shopping centers, data centers and cell towers. Many are real estate investment trusts.
Companies we cover
2 companies in Real Estate
Prologis
PLDPrologis owns, builds and manages warehouses in 20 countries and rents them to about 6,500 customers such as Amazon and Home Depot, with FY2025 revenue of $8.8 billion.
Discloses: SomeUpdated for Q3 FY2026 · checked
Realty Income owns stores, warehouses and other buildings that it rents to single tenants on long leases, earning $5,437.3 million of rent in FY2025.
Discloses: SomeUpdated for Q3 FY2026 · checked
The companies side by side
Each figure is from the company's own page, for its latest full fiscal year unless a date is shown. Fiscal years end in different months, so the same label can cover different periods. Select a column heading to re-order the rows.
Net income per $100 of revenue: Cityfort calculation from each company's annual numbers (net income ÷ revenue × 100). Free cash flow: cash from operations minus capital spending, as on each company's page. Debt-to-equity: total debt ÷ shareholders' equity, as on each company's page for the balance-sheet date shown. Sources for every figure are on each company's page. US$, GAAP as reported.
How companies in this sector earn
How do Real Estate companies make money?
- Property owners earn rent from tenants, usually under leases that run for several years.
- Developers buy land, build on it and then sell or lease the buildings.
- Service companies earn fees for managing, leasing or brokering properties for others.
- Interest on loans, upkeep, property taxes and the cost of buying or building properties are the largest costs.
Who regulates it
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which sets the tax rules a REIT must meet · Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), for fair housing rules · State and local zoning and building authorities
What moves results across the sector
- Occupancy and rent levels, which the companies report each quarter.
- Interest rates, because property is usually bought and built with borrowed money.
- Demand for each kind of space, such as offices, warehouses or data centers.
Words you'll meet
Key terms
- REIT
- A real estate investment trust: a company that owns income-producing property and, under US tax rules, pays out most of its taxable income as dividends.
- Occupancy
- The share of a property's space that is leased to tenants.
- Funds from operations (FFO)
- A measure many REITs report that adds property depreciation back to net income; it is the company's own measure, not a GAAP figure.
- Lease
- A contract that lets a tenant use a property for a set time in return for rent.
Last updated Nov 6, 2026.
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