Comparing Apples to Sledge Hammers

I thought I wrote about this once before but could not find it in my archive. CNBC did its second profile (at least I only know of one other time) of REITs that focus on various types of student housing at colleges. I first became aware of investing in RE near colleges when I was in college. Some of my fraternity brothers lived in small houses their parents bought as an investment while they were there (which for San Diego State might be an average of six years but I got out in four).

Apparently there are three REITs that are in this sub sector (if you know of more please let me know). The three are Education Realty Trust (EDR), American Campus Communities (ACC) and GMH Communities Trust (GCT). The idea intrigues me. I am not sure about investing in any of them but there is no reason not to check them out. I do not trust the info on Yahoo. The EDR numbers are way off compared to EDR's corporate site which I had to call the company to get. It is http://aoinc.com/.

ACC appears financially healthy. EDR has a great roster of properties but I can't figure out why the results aren't better. GCT has been the best performing stock (http://www.gmhcommunities.com/), has a long list of properties that is impressive and it has positive FFO's yet CNBC didn't find anyone with anything good to say about it. At this point I can say I am merely aware of the group and am interested in learning more.

The inspiration for the title for this piece comes from one of the message boards I saw where someone suggested IMPAC Mortgage Holdings (IMH) instead. I do not know if this person was trying to talk up something he owned or really didn't know the difference. A REIT that invests in mortgages is a different type of vehicle than one that invests in apartment buildings. Without getting into detail now or getting into whether one is better than the other, they are different.