The offering doc says 62% distribution coverage. I still want in.
Been circling a public non-traded REIT for four months. The number that stopped me is in the distributions table: for the trailing year, roughly 62% of distributions paid were funded from cash flow from operations. The remainder came from offering proceeds and from the advisor waiving part of its fee.
Size I'm considering is 25k, which is real money against what I have but not the whole pile. My alternative use for it is sitting in cash while I keep hunting for a first small deal, and I have been hunting long enough to admit I might be avoiding the deal rather than sourcing it.
What I understand: a fund still deploying capital can have real assets and lumpy timing, so coverage under 100% early in a ramp isn't automatically a problem. What I don't understand is how to tell a ramp from a treadmill. The fee waiver especially. If the sponsor can turn the waiver off next quarter and coverage would have been 48% without it, then the reported distribution rate is partly the sponsor's marketing budget.
I asked the rep and got a paragraph about the strength of the portfolio, which is not an answer to the question I asked.
So, what did people here look at to distinguish the two cases? And is there a coverage number below which you just walk?