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Preferred Apartment (APTS) Inks 15-Year Lease Deal in Atlanta

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Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc. recently inked a new 15-year lease with Hapag-Lloyd for roughly five floors and 127,000 square feet at its Three Ravinia office building in Atlanta. With this, the property is now nearly 94% leased and has an average weighted lease term of more than nine years.

Hapag-Lloyd, a liner shipping company, will likely create approximately 250 new jobs in the region over the next several years by establishing its new office at Three Ravinia. The initial occupancy is expected in the third quarter of 2022.

Three Ravinia is advantageously located in the central perimeter market of Atlanta, GA and offers a Class A office environment. Moreover, by enhancing transportation infrastructure within 2022, the property will lure more tenants.

Per Joel Murphy, Preferred Apartment’s chairman and chief executive officer, "This significant long-term lease further diversifies our already high-quality tenant base, creates material additional cash flows and enhances the value of this Class A asset.”

Shares of this currently Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) player have gained 24.8% in the past three months, outperforming the industry’s 6% rally. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Other Stocks to Consider

Some other stocks worth considering from the REIT sector are AvalonBay Communities (AVB - Free Report) , Camden Property Trust (CPT - Free Report) and Equity Residential (EQR - Free Report) .

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AvalonBay’s 2021 FFO per share has been raised marginally over the past week. AVB’s 2021 fund from operations (FFO) per share are expected to increase 10.9% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

AvalonBay carries a Zacks Rank of 2 at present. Shares of AVB have rallied 17.6% in the past six months.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Camden Property’s current-year FFO per share has been raised marginally to $5.36 in the past week. CPT’s 2021 FFO per share is expected to increase 22.3% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

Currently, CPT carries a Zacks Rank of 2. Shares of Camden Property have appreciated 30.8% in the past six months.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Equity Residential’ s 2021 FFO per share has been revised marginally upward in the past week to $2.96.

EQR’s 2021 FFO per share is expected to increase 5.3% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

Equity Residential carries a Zacks Rank 2 at present. Shares of EQR have appreciated 10.6% in the past six months.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represent FFO — a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.

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