What Active REIT Managers Bought And Sold In Q4 2025
As we have explained in the past, we don’t make buying or selling decisions based on what any other investors are doing, including the best active REIT portfolio managers.
That said, we are very interested in what the REIT “smart money” is doing. It represents one data point among many that we consider in our research process.
Of course, most of the time, we do not have access to active REIT managers’ commentary or thinking on why they made buy and sell decisions. This limits the value of seeing their quarterly trades. We can only guess, in most cases, about why any given active manager made the decisions they made during the last quarter.
However, some useful information and themes still emerge from poring over active REIT managers’ 13F filings, so let’s jump in and see what we can learn.
The latest filings show position sizes and trades as of the last quarter.
Starwood Capital Group Management
Billionaire Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group is mostly focused on direct property investments, but several years ago, the company began scooping up shares of deeply undervalued REITs and now maintains a small, concentrated REIT portfolio. Here is what he said in a CNBC interview:
“By the way, when credit comes back, you are gonna see REITs take off... There are some unbelievable bargains in REITs. We did the same thing during the pandemic. We bought a dozen stocks all over the world and we had a 70% IRR on that stuff. We are already buying some stuff in the public market...“ Barry Sternlicht, CEO/Chairman, Starwood
This small group of REITs gives a view into what Barry Sternlicht finds attractive on the public markets.
As you can see, Starwood’s primary bet is on Sunbelt apartments, as over 2/3rds of the REIT portfolio is invested in the three big Sunbelt multifamily REITs: Camden Property Trust (CPT), Mid-America Apartment Communities (MAA), and NexPoint Realty Trust (NXRT).
In interviews as well as quarterly earnings conference calls, Sternlicht has repeatedly articulated his long-term bullishness on Sunbelt apartments based on the rapid drop in new supply over the next few years.
However, Starwood seems to be bullish on multifamily in general, given its exposure to Class A coastal apartment landlord Equity Residential (EQR) and Northeast-focused Veris Residential (VRE).
Lastly, we note that Starwood continues to hold one of our favorite industrial REITs, First Industrial Realty (FR).
