• Mortgage REITs took center-stage during the early stages of the pandemic as financial market instability violently shook the mREIT sector to the core with mind-numbing declines of more than 70%.
• Buoyed by a suddenly red-hot U.S. housing market, residential mREITs have rallied back from the brink over the last two quarters and have nearly doubled in value from their lows.
• Contrary to many forecasts, the pain across the housing sector and feared wave of foreclosures has not occurred. Instead, surging home prices have pushed the foreclosure rate to record-lows.
• After 32 of the 42 mortgage REITs slashed their dividend between February through June, there has been more dividend increase than cuts since then. mREITs currently pay a hearty dividend yield of nearly 9%.
• Mortgage REIT earnings season officially kicks off this week. The 3 trends we're watching: 1) Dividend Resumptions, 2) Updated Book Values, and 3) Macroeconomic Commentary on the Mortgage and Housing Markets.

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Disclosure: A complete list of holdings and Real Estate and Housing Index definitions and holdings are available at HoyaCapital.com. Hoya Capital Real Estate advises an Exchange Traded Fund listed on the NYSE. Hoya Capital is long all components in the Hoya Capital Housing 100 Index.

Additional Disclosure: It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Index performance cited in this commentary does not reflect the performance of any fund or other account managed or serviced by Hoya Capital Real Estate. Data quoted represents past performance, which is no guarantee of future results. Information presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy.