David Auerbach: How REITs Turn Dividends Into Passive Income - EP18

David Auerbach has spent 25 years inside the REIT industry, and he knows it from every angle — trading, portfolio management, investor relations, and fund management. As CIO of Hoya Capital, he explains why REITs are powerful dividend machines, how they generate wealth through compounding, and why they remain one of the most misunderstood investment vehicles.  

In this conversation we dive into:  
- How REITs generate steady dividend income  
- Why ETFs and public markets make REITs accessible to everyday investors  
- The evolution of REIT sectors from offices and apartments to data centers and healthcare  
- The difference between perception and reality in commercial real estate  
- David’s personal story of how a classified ad launched his REIT career  

If you’ve ever wondered how to start investing in REITs or why dividends matter so much, this episode will give you the clarity you need.  

Connect with David:  
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-auerbach/ 
- Twitter: @dailyreitbeat  
- Website: hoyacapital.com  

Follow The Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock for more conversations with top real estate leaders.  

🎙 About Steven Weinstock
Steven Weinstock is a real estate investor and founder of WeCapital and the Goethals Capital Fund. Since 2001, he has built a diverse portfolio of residential and multifamily assets while helping investors access passive income through strategic real estate opportunities. On this podcast, he shares real-world insights on investing, capital raising, and what it really takes to build and scale in today’s market.

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Visit: www.WeCapitalX.com

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Transcript

david auerbach full audio

Steven Weinstock: [00:00:00] Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock. I've been investing in real estate for over 20 years. Started off in single family homes started doing multifamily properties, real estate syndications, and recently launched my own real estate investment fund. This podcast is brought to you by my company, WE Capital, and Goethals Capital Fund, where we buy properties in cash.

We lock in deep discounts and we eliminate the mortgage risk upfront for the first year, and then we refinance in order to scale. The show's not about me, it's about operators, founders, thought leaders, educators who are building real results in real time in the real estate industry. Today I'm joined by David Auerbach, a 25 year reit, REIT.

REIT industry veteran and the Chief Investment Officer at [00:01:00] Oya Capital. Over his career, David has worn a lot of hats, institutional trading, portfolio management, sales, marketing, investor relations. He's seen every angle of the REIT world and he is one of the best people who understand how these structures work.

David, thank you very much for coming on. 

David Auerbach: Thanks Steven for having me. It's great to be here. 

Steven Weinstock: Okay, David where are you from, by the way? 

David Auerbach: You're talking to me from Dallas, Texas today. 

Steven Weinstock: Okay. Are you born and raised there? 

David Auerbach: Born and raised. I live five minutes from the house I grew up in where I'm sitting right now.

I'm about a block away from my high school that I went to growing up. So I haven't gotten very far in life. 

Steven Weinstock: Yeah, I'm about a half a mile away from where I grew up. I'm here in Brooklyn, New York.

But yeah, I haven't made it too far either. What was your first job you had? 

David Auerbach: We talking about like, when I was in high school or coming outta college? First [00:02:00] job 

Steven Weinstock: when you were 18 plus. 

David Auerbach: 18 plus, I guess would be a summer camp counselor in Eagle River, Wisconsin. But I started really as as an intern to a financial advisor who was a hybrid CPA accountant slash stockbroker.

There is a couple of firms that focus on tax preparer CPAs that were doing investment management for their clients. And this particular gentleman actually happened to sublease space from my father's CPA practice many years ago. Knew that I wanted to be on Wall Street as a kid, and basically gave me my foot in the door to get into the industry.

Steven Weinstock: Got it. Talk to us about Hoya Capital. 

David Auerbach: Hoya Capital is the largest seeking alpha REIT research platform. We also cover other sectors like real estate, MLPs, closed end funds BDCs, et cetera. But it was started a decade ago by my partner who graduated [00:03:00] from Georgetown University with its MBA, launched a research practice covering the 200 publicly traded REITs, home builders and other real estate companies.

Built out what I call the baseball team, the bench of writers, covering a lot of these other sectors and then launched his first ETFs in 2018. Another fund was launched a couple years later. Today, Hoya has two ETFs listed on the New York Stock Exchange with about 130 $140 million under management.

And like I said, we actively publish research daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually across all of the different sectors and companies that make up the world of real estate investment trusts. 

Steven Weinstock: What type of assets is Hoya Capital invested in? 

David Auerbach: Hoya actually is a fund manager. It's also an advisor practice.

So we own 99.9% of the publicly traded securities, the guys listed on the New York Stock [00:04:00] Exchange the nasdaq, et cetera. We own the companies that own the hard assets. So as an example, from where you're located, we would own SL Green. Boston Properties or BXP vornado Avalon Bay, the list goes on and on, but we own the publicly traded companies that own the hard assets, and this is why I'm so passionate about this, especially on the education side.

Here's a great example. There's two publicly traded data center REITs that are out there called Digital Realty and Equinix. Why do I mention that? You and I are having a conversation on Zoom right now. Do you know how many conversations are happening on Zoom right at this moment in the United States, if not in the world, and the answer is.

A lot. And do you know who's earning the revenue off of those conversations? It's the data center guys, the digitals and the equinoxes, which means shareholders are earning dividend income. [00:05:00] By you and I having this interview conversation today, we use these properties that are owned by REITs 24 7 and don't even think about it, and can earn dividend income by living our normal day-to-day lives, but yet.

We have CNBC on this screen over here. I've got Bloomberg on this screen over here who focus on the headlines, the commercial real estate wall of debt that's coming due. REITs are interest rates sensitive. Oh, there's inflation. The list goes on and on, and yet our job is to peel back the layers of the onion to the company level and kind of highlight the misconception versus reality of what's really going on.

Steven Weinstock: So you're obviously very passionate about the reit space. How'd you get into the REIT space as opposed to traditional real estate investing? 

David Auerbach: It was by chance actually it goes back to my first job that I mentioned working [00:06:00] with that financial advisor. What led me to leaving that financial advisor was I had somebody reach out to me that, had me take them to launch, to open an account, basically like my first account as a stockbroker.

And I told my boss, and my boss is Hey, that's awesome. You can't go have lunch with. Why not your mine during market hours from eight to four, your mine, you want to build a book of business? That's on your time, not on my time. And I said networking's a 24 hour a day job. You don't set a time to go out and network.

And by the way, you're my boss, which means any commissioner revenue that I earn. It goes to you, so why wouldn't you want me to go have lunch with this client? And he basically said, my shot, my rules. And I go that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. PS, I got fired the next day. So back in the day.

When the newspaper [00:07:00] used to publish a daily classified ad section or a job section, there was a classified ad. I'm not exaggerating. It was two lines, one inch font. Got series seven sixty three. Call this number. I called the number and it wound up being to be the junior trader on this REIT trading desk here in Dallas.

So it was literally responding to a classified ad as how I got my start in the reit industry. 

Steven Weinstock: Wow. That's that's quite a story. REIT investors love the dividends. Why? Why is that? Why is dividends so popular with a certain class of investors? Although you'll have some investors who you know could care less about dividends.

David Auerbach: First of all, I've done a lot of these interviews, Steven, and I've never been asked that question, so kudos to you because that's exactly what I focus on every single day is the dividend side of the equation. Thank you. Let's unpack it. Your total return [00:08:00] Is comprised of two components, stock, price, appreciation, and dividend income.

I and my underlying constituents in every single company that trades on Wall Street has no control over what our stock price is doing, period. But I can't control the dividend income that we generate in terms of how much we're paying out per share, how much we're covering our dividend, et cetera. But think big picture.

REIT are dividend income compounding machines. The most well known reits, one of the most well-known reits, is a company called Realty Income. For those that don't know, their ticker is the letter O and their tagline, their motto is the monthly dividend company. So Realty Income has. Hundreds, if not close to thousands of months of dividends in its history that they consistently raise year over [00:09:00] year.

Something I mentioned to anybody that wants to listen to me. One of the greatest gifts that you as a parent or a grandparent can do for your newborn child or grandchild is to go out on the first day that child is born. Open up an UGMA account. For that child, buy one share of realty income, one share of Angry Realty or Apple lodging, or another monthly paying dividend REIT that allows you to drip dividend reinvestment programs, re drip those dividends back into the stock.

Why does that matter? That one share of stock that you buy for that child could appreciate to 25 50 shares of stock by the time that child turns legal or when they cash in that account, the income builds on itself. Here's a [00:10:00] very simplified example. Let's say stock is trading at $20 a share, and the company pays out a $2 a share dividend per year in 10 years.

Hypothetically, you've recouped the principle of that stock just through the dividend income that you earned. And oh, by the way. Most likely that $2 a share is going to grow the end investor. Pick your favorite stock. Forget REITs. The end investor. Whether you buy Nvidia, Microsoft, apple, Intel, Simon Property Group or something, biopharma, whatever.

You, the end investor, want that company to do four things. At the end of the day, grow revenues, grow profits, grow the annual guidance, what you're gonna earn per share every year, and grow the dividend. If you can do those four things, regardless of what's happening in the macro world, tariffs interest rates, recession, whatever it [00:11:00] is.

If the company's able to do those four things, you would assume that by and large all things are humming along and the company is on solid footing and pretty much. That's happening in the world of REITs. The world of REITs is like your graduating class in high school. Let's say there was 200 kids that graduated your class.

You got the top 10%, the valedictorians, the salutatorian, the kids that went to Harvard and Yale. The companies that are in the s and p 500, you got the bottom 10%. The bullies, the troublemakers, the kids that were in detention, the kids that graduated these, the rates that are over levered or can't cover their dividend.

But you've got 180, 170 stocks and students that are in the middle of that curve, that fly under the radar that don't get the attention. And that's our job is to focus on all of these companies in the middle, frankly, because that's what drives the car down the road. So you ask about dividends, why [00:12:00] dividends are so important because we could control that income stream.

We know where the dividend is going, that's. Pretty much relatively safe and guaranteed. And that dividend is based off of how much is that company earning, and then how much of that company is pushing that down to the bottom line to profits. Because that's the cool thing with REITs, 90% if not all, of the net income that they've earned after paying off the taxes and all the other.

That gets passed through to shareholders that's the wall. So you're basically earning income by this company doing its day to day, whether it's running self storage properties, apartment properties, office buildings, whatever it is, they've gotta pass out that profit to shareholders. But it's also why the management teams that run these companies own so much stock.

They're on the front lines of the battle with the shareholders. So as that company does well and that dividend goes up, guess what? Management just got a nice little bonus in their pocket as well. So we all wanna see that dividend [00:13:00] machine continue to grow and thrive. 

Steven Weinstock: You've been in the REIT industry for quite some time.

What's the biggest change you've seen in the reit business since it started and I, and did it start, it started in the early nineties, am I correct? 

David Auerbach: It goes back to the sixties really, when the REIT legislation was enacted. The real IPO push happened in the nineties, no doubt. And. The simple answer is it's a night and day industry.

It used to just be the big couple of sectors, apartments, shopping centers, offices, et cetera. Now there's close to 20 different sub-sectors that are out there. You've got things that are very well known and things that are not well known, like cannabis and billboards, and some of these, timbers an example, so there's outlying sectors that you don't think of as REITs, but yet they are REITs.

What's also changed. The world of investors back then, it used to be the REIT Mafia is what they were called. You had the guys that got the REIT industry off the ground, the original institutional investors, and [00:14:00] now you've got sovereign wealth funds institution in insurance plans, pension funds.

It's because again, that safety of the dividend income side of the equation. The other thing that's changed frankly, is the evolution of exchange traded funds. Many years ago, it was just mutual funds. You were buying REIT mutual funds or owning the stocks outright. Now you've got ETFs and unit investment trusts, UITs and closed end funds, and all sorts of different avenues and.

Private vehicles, the world of private reit has evolved dramatically versus what existed in the nineties. Look at what Blackstone and Starwood are doing is to name two of the biggest sponsors that are out there. The platforms that a Blackstone and Starwood have built. Frankly, the market cap of those.

Outweighs what was trading in the nineties. So I think we've seen, obviously as commercial real estate has [00:15:00] evolved and more buildings have gone up coast to coast and continue to evolve. That's why you see more players get involved in the industry. And then the magic eight ball question is. What's the next cannabis sector idea out there for REITs?

What's that next innovative idea? Is it solar? Is it something around ai? Is it the metaverse? Again, I don't know the answers to this. If I knew the answer to that buddy, I'd be talking to you on my Gulf Stream as I'm on the way to Fiji at my private resort. I don't know the answer to that, but if you had told me 25, 26 years ago that we would've 20 sectors and 200 companies, I would've said, you're crazy.

And sure enough, that's where we stand today. 

Steven Weinstock: Are there any sectors that you are staying away from and any sectors that you are very bullish on?

David Auerbach: We embrace all the sectors. So I would say that no, we are not avoiding any [00:16:00] sectors. We don't necessarily own the private REITs in our ETF because it's hard to mark that on a day-to-day basis.

So we don't own that in our funds, but I would say that. Our job as fund managers is, obviously multi-layered, but the real question is, where's the puck going? Where's that ball going? How's it approaching down the field? It's trying to figure out where does the population migration trend shift to as a good sector to follow is senior housing.

There's a lot of press that's out there in the world of senior housing or healthcare reits. When I talk healthcare res, we're talking senior housing, medical office buildings, hospitals, rehab. The list goes on and on. Forget the data center side of it, or the Amazon effect on your cell phone and how you're interacting with REITs by ordering an Amazon package or whatever.

Healthcare touches all of us at multiple points in our lives. You go to the doctor's office for a checkup. You gotta go in for a surgery, you gotta [00:17:00] go get your teeth cleaned, you gotta go to rehab. Healthcare touches all of us at many different points in our lives. It's a sector continues to.

Thinking about senior housing today, frankly, there's not enough inventory out there for the next generation of tenants that are moving in or for the further generations, and more importantly, for the generations that have grown accustomed to, as I joke, a certain lifestyle, moderate amenities, fixtures, high tech, whatever, it's you're watching an industry that's evolving.

And so senior housing is something to keep an eye on. Because it touches all of us in our lives that we will be using various sectors of this, but then there's all the other sectors that we use every single day. A good example is net lease. When I talk about net lease, that means, frankly. Going to your Starbucks and getting a cup of coffee, going to the gas station to get gas, going to the car wash, [00:18:00] going to the out parcel, the sandwich shop at the mall, whatever.

It's, we use net lease properties every single day. Forget the grocery anchor shopping center because a little bit different from where you sit versus where I sit. You got the corner bodegas. You don't really have strip centers du jour I've got. Two back here. I got two down over. We got strip centers out the wazoo here in Dallas.

And so the cool thing about our industry to put a little bow on this, I always use this example and I apologize if it's tired, but I, it just hits home. Do me a favor. How do you, how do you tell if Nvidia is doing well? How do you observe Nvidia in real time? You can't. You take Jensen Huang word for it when they report earnings or you see 'em being interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC.

How about Apple? How can you gauge how Apple is doing? Sure. They've got their investor day, their product launch. You see the line out the store when they have the new product launch, whatever. [00:19:00] But you have to take management's word for it when earnings come out. Alright. How do you examine REITs in real time?

That's simple. Brick Smore is a shopping center re, they've got a property that's a mile down the road here that my wife and I go and shop at one of the grocery stores every other week or so. You can observe that shopping center 24 hours a day. How's the parking lot look, how full is the occupancy?

Is the sign missing or white or something? How well kept up is that property. With our industry, you can observe your investments in real time 24 7. Because it's almost like eating, you eat with your eyes first before you actually consume the food. It's the same thing in the world of REITs and real estate.

You observe the REITs of the properties with your eyes before you make that investment decision. I know that Bricks property, yeah, they're kicking ass over there. Did you know that Bricks also owns this and this here, and 200 [00:20:00] other properties of similar quality coast to coast? No, I had no idea.

Light bulb goes off. Education moment. Now you've got somebody interested on the hook, and that's all What it's about is we can look at these properties in real time and see what's doing well versus not doing well. Then of course, it's peeling back the layers of the onion, looking at the financial statements, the debt stack, the debt to see really how well is that company looking doing.

But at first glance, it's what's the actual physical real estate doing? 

Steven Weinstock: You're obviously very passionate about the reit industry, and I hear it and I see it in this interview. You mentioned earlier that you produce newsletters a daily, monthly, lots of content. Is that only for your clients?

Is that open to the public? Is it a mixture of both? 

David Auerbach: It's both. I'm very approachable on social media. I run a daily newsletter called The Daily reit beat so it's very easy to find. I publish [00:21:00] the headlines regularly on LinkedIn, on Twitter through our Hoya Capital audience. We do publish subscription based research as well at hoya capital.com, or you can find us on Seeking Alpha.

So the answer is, it depends. But we really try to level the playing field when it comes to news. That's my baby, is the daily reit repeat that starts before anything else that I do. And again, it boils down to education. Lemme break it down for you as an example. We're talking at the end of August.

In this particular morning, a sell side firm downgraded a company called Health Peak Properties. The ticker is doc. Not going into the upgrade. Downgrade the rationale of the move, but here's why I mentioned this. The institutional investors knew about this downgrade at 7:00 AM Eastern this morning, and were able to prepare ahead of time because they know this report is out.

I've gotta read it. Here's what's gonna happen to the stock. It's probably gonna trade down because it's a downgrade. Okay, fine. The actual user of that properties [00:22:00] that goes to healthcare health Peaks properties, or as I refer to grandma and grandpa who live in the villages down in Florida, may never know.

That Health Peak was downgraded today, may not know why the stock is down. If they happen to look at the account or they look at their month end statement, or their advisor may not know that this happened. So I try to level the playing field that grandma and grandpa find out that same story. It's the same time as the institutional investor does, and therefore everybody understands what's going on.

It's not my job to say, buy, sell, hold. When it comes to the day-to-day headlines, again, my partner on the research side, that's his job to tell you what's buy, sell, hold. But even then, even if I tell you buddy, Nvidia is a buy, you are gonna be the one to determine at the end of the day, is Nvidia a buy seller or hold?

And so I leave this piece of advice for anybody watching this today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, 10 years from now. Just because the advisor [00:23:00] tells you to buy it, don't buy it. Do your own due diligence. Do your own valuation, your own metrics. Read the reports, do your own analysis, because what makes Nvidia buy to me, makes it a hold to you.

Makes it a sell to them. So no two investors are alike, and that's why I tell people, I don't care if you buy my funds or not. I want you to understand why you should be buying our funds or our sector. Once you understand the whys, at least of REITs and dividend income and all that stuff, then we could start unpacking why our funds might be a good option for what you're trying to accomplish.

But I'm trying to get everybody more interested about the world of REITs, and here's the reason why. It's very plain simple if rates are interest rate sensitive and are tied to the 10 year treasury, et cetera. When the next fed chairperson comes in the next few months, we already know that next Fed chairperson is going to take, frankly, let's [00:24:00] call it an aggressive stance on interest rate policy.

Therefore. If and when interest rates are cut, REITs and interest rate sensitive sectors are the direct beneficiaries of those of cuts. Therefore, you want to get on board today for what's coming tomorrow. 

Steven Weinstock: Do you only invest in REITs or talk about REITs or research REITs based in the US or anywhere else in the world?

David Auerbach: So we also cover the home builders because of our housing funds. So we do cover all the home goods and furnishings and all the other stuff that make up the world of housing. Just, I wanna make sure we're clear on that. We are starting to tiptoe more and more international on the REITs and real estate side.

Looking at Canada, maybe some of the stuff that's in Asia that's out there, a lot of it responds to what our investors and audience are looking for. There's a lot of shops that cover Canada, let's say Green Street just launched a big [00:25:00] Canada platform here recently. But when you think about global investing and how US commercial real estate represents more than 70% of that pie, it all starts here domestically.

Steven Weinstock: What do you do outside of real estate for fun or for, any passion projects? 

David Auerbach: You might get a kick out of this. I've seen 240 Phish concerts. Ooh. And I'm on the track to try to get to 500 by the time that they're done touring. Whenever that happens, I dunno if I'm gonna get there. But in the, in my spare time, I'm out crisscrossing the country, trying to see as many fish concerts as I possibly can.

Is Phil Les 

Steven Weinstock: still involved or is he 

David Auerbach: That's great. He was in the Grateful Dead and he passed away earlier this 

Steven Weinstock: year. Oh, I mixed up the name last year. So who was the lead singer? Who was the main guy in Phish or the lead singer in Phish? His name's Trey Anastasia. Oh. Okay. I, it is I wasn't into the dead and I wasn't into Phish, but I had friends probably about 20 years ago, 25 years ago that were into it.

And I guess [00:26:00] I just mixed up the name. Okay. Here I thought I would Wow. You and instead you correct me.

So you're seeing concerts all over the country, all over the world? 

David Auerbach: The farthest international. I've seen them as Mexico at this point, so Got it. I wouldn't say all over the world yet. 

Steven Weinstock: Got it. But I guess from Dallas Mexico is not too not too far. Correct. All right. Very nice. And so that means you're going to every concert available or you there's plenty more that you're missing.

David Auerbach: There's definitely plenty that I'm missing, especially since the boss, also known as my wife, does have a say in my concert adventures of when I can and can't go. But we're always looking forward to that next show. 

Steven Weinstock: When did you start attending these concerts? 

David Auerbach: I started in April of 1996. I learned about them in the early nineties though, when I was a teenager.

Steven Weinstock: Got it. Got it. Oh wow. Okay. So I've seen I've seen some acts more than once. I've seen U2 three times. I saw a red hot Chili pepper show YouTube 

David Auerbach: back in the day [00:27:00] I saw Red Hot. I did see at Sphere, I heard U2 Sphere was a good show to see 'em at though, 

Steven Weinstock: so I haven't seen them recently. I did see Red Hot Chili Peppers three times.

David Auerbach: Got it. 

Steven Weinstock: And then I saw this band that's based in Canada, it's more of a college band. It was called Our Lady Peace. I've seen them. It could be over 10 times but definitely a very good band. But 

David Auerbach: I, 

Steven Weinstock: yeah, definitely something to check out. If you weren't in the REIT business, what would you be doing?

David Auerbach: I would say at this point in my career, being this far down now it might be education. Like teaching college or high school finance, something like that. That's it's hard to go back in reverse and be like, all right, what would you wanna do now? I always knew, again, as a child that I wanted to be on Wall Street.

I. My, my parents like to tell the story when I was six, seven years old. As kids are watching cartoons before school, I'm watching CNN money and what's going on the New York Stock Exchange. Literally, it's not that I own stocks or anything, I was just fascinated by the hustle and [00:28:00] bustle of the activity on the floor.

Looking at , my father again is A CPA had a daily subscription to the Wall Street Journal back in the day, and looking at stock tables when stock tables used to be published in the paper every single day. Berkshire Hathaway as a child 'cause their number on the stock table was so much larger than everybody else's.

Or seeing Boston Celtics or other publicly traded companies that I used or knew every single day. And that's what spurred me down this road. If I hadn't gone into REIT's, it probably again was gonna be a financial advisor, something related to Wall Street. Unfortunately the floor business has changed.

I wasn't gonna move to new, obviously it would've been nice to move to New York. That's a whole separate story where it would've been great to be in the pit, in the crowd doing the hand motions, all the stuff in the exchange. That changed a long time ago, fortunately. But I remember my first trip in 2000.

2001 before nine 11, going to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time. [00:29:00] And I'm not exaggerating, I literally had the chills walking out there for the first time, the hair standing up on my arm. I'll never forget that moment 'cause it was like. I hate to joke, it was Mecca. I was at Mecca, this place that I've looked up to as an establishment for so long, and here I am in the center of it and looking at the podium and all this stuff, just talking about, I'm not exactly, I gave it chills right now just thinking about it.

So I always knew it was gonna be something related to the exchange and in fact. From that ringing. This, they give this out. I don't know if you can see this screen. They give out this coin at every bell ringing ceremony, to anybody that rings the bell. And I look at this every single day as like a tiny, symbolic moment of making it in wall Street, of getting to celebrate that accomplishment.

Steven Weinstock: For someone listening who wants to start exploring REITs, what's step one?

David Auerbach: That's a good [00:30:00] question. It, it varies depending on the motive. Some folks have the money side of the equation lined up, but they don't have the scale of the property side. Some folks have the properties lined up, but they don't have the money side of the equation. So let me, some people don't have the long-term vision.

Steven Weinstock: Let me rephrase the question. So you have somebody who is 25 years old. They have a few extra dollars every paycheck. They want to get into real estate. They want to invest. They don't have access to, debt platforms and syndications. They don't know who to trust, who not to trust. There's something about being on the public markets that sort of helps with the process of making it easy making it affordable.

Some sort of trust factor is already in there just by the mere fact that they're publicly traded. What? What should he do with his extra few hundred dollars every year paycheck? 

David Auerbach: Alright, that is a great question. Kudos to you. And the answer is, frankly, it [00:31:00] depends. So here's why I say that.

There are publicly traded stocks that are trading from frankly, pennies. To Equinix right at this moment, which I believe is the most expensive on the stock side of it. Equinix at this moment is trading at $777 a share. So from pennies to 700 bucks a share, you could buy stocks. My etf, one of my ETFs, is trading at $9 and 60 cents, and you can own a hundred REIT stocks through our one wrapper.

You can buy. Publicly traded real estate REIT Securities on the New York Stock Exchange, on the nasdaq, on Robinhood in E-Trade, et cetera. These are liquid investments, so you can get your foot in the door for a handful, a couple of bucks, and own a very tiny fractional piece of tens, if not hundreds.

Steven Weinstock: Okay. [00:32:00] David you're definitely one of the most passionate interviews I've done kudos to you using your word. Thank 

David Auerbach: you.

Steven Weinstock: Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm gonna put everything in the show notes, but tell our audience how they could reach out to you. Phone number, email, whatever you want to put on.

I'll put it in the show notes. You can give them the alarm code to your house, whatever you feel you need. Last 

David Auerbach: four digits of my social, et cetera. Last four exactly, 

Steven Weinstock: so 

David Auerbach: you could find me on LinkedIn, David Auerbach. I'm pretty easy to find them on Twitter at daily. reit beat as I mentioned, there's the daily reit beat newsletter the daily reitbeat.com Hoya Capital.

HOYA Capital is our research website. You can find us on Seeking Alpha. You can find us at hoyacapital.com. But we're very easy to find with the amount of content that we publish. 

Steven Weinstock: Okay, David, again, thank you very much. I really enjoyed your perspective on REITs dividends and especially how REITs and the industry touches, everyday lives.

Whether I'm shopping [00:33:00] in. A strip mall. Yes. So we do have some or we do have some anchored maybe not here in the city, but I'm in New Jersey a lot. So I definitely know what you're talking about. Whether I'm at Starbucks how these REITs really affect our, you. Daily life, whether I'm ordering from Amazon and what Prologis probably owns the, the warehouse where Amazon keeps its inventory.

David Auerbach: You got the cell tower to place the order, the data center, to process it in the industrial warehouse to send it to your doorstep. 

Steven Weinstock: Okay, let's see if I have this right. I have, American Tower is a cell tower reit. Correct. We have, Prologis will probably own or manage the Amazon warehouse.

Correct. Okay. And what was the third one that you mentioned? Let's see if I get that.

Digital or Equinex, the data center. Got it. Making all the 0's and 1's back and forth. Got it. Okay. If you got value from this episode, make sure to follow the Wealth Flock with Steven Winestock or on Apple, Spotify.

The video will be on YouTube. David, thank you very [00:34:00] much. It was really fun to have you, you were fun to talk to. Until the next time. I'm Steven Weinstock. Thank you for tuning in, David. Thank you. Thanks 

David Auerbach: Steven.