Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, real estate investment trust RAIT Financial
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at RAIT's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
RAIT facts
| Headquarters (founded) | Philadelphia (1997) |
| Market Cap | $254.7 million |
| Industry | Diversified REIT |
| Trailing-12-Month Revenue | $115.12 million |
| Management |
Chairman/CEO Scott Schaeffer CFO Jack Salmon |
| Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) | (32.3%) |
| Cash/Debt | $27.2 million / $2 billion |
| Dividend Yield | 1.3% |
| Competitors |
iStar Financial |
Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 94% of the 611 members who have rated RAIT believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include carsondyle and All-Star pennystockguy, who is ranked in the top 5% of our community.
In late February, carsondyle kindly updated Fools on RAIT's financial picture: "Book value around $8, turned profit in 4th quarter and will be profitable for 2011, will probably be a dividend for 2011 at the end of the year, Making money at 79.2% occupancy and I expect the occupancy rate to tick up this year."
Currently, RAIT even sports a particularly paltry price-to-book of 0.3. That represents a discount to other commercial REITs like iStar Financial (0.5), Boston Properties
CAPS member pennystockguy elaborates on the bull case:
Property occupancy has went from 69% in the prior year to 79% today.
Non-accrual loans decreased from $171m to $122m year over year
Debt to equity has improved from 3.0 to 2.3 year over year
10.4% of their loans are non-performing and reserves have been put in place for half those loans
I work in real estate and real estate is recovering slowly and I highly doubt the country or real estate does a douple dip. Additionally, they have a large portfolio of multi family units and this is the sweet spot of [commercial real estate] today. Many people are losing their homes and are moving into apartments. There is an oversupply of CRE in the US and nothing is going to be built in the next two years. Instead occupancy rates will continue to move up.
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