Hey there,
On of the reasons for Boardwalk's outperformance relative to many other REITs, is due to the fact it is an speciality housing REIT. Most of its revenue is driven by short-term rentals, which in this market where we have high immigration and low housing availability, the company is ideally situated. It is also strategically located in many of the bigger centers where demand for residential properties sin't falling anytime soon.
This is likely the main reason why BEI has done better than most. In fact, it is mainly residential REITs that are sitting on positive gains for the year while many other industries have struggled. The other thing to note, REIT's yield is very low compared to the others which means that investors aren't necessarily just buying it for the yield. This is important because when interest rates rise and you can get fixed income at 5%, high yield companies become less attractive because they carry additional risk. So you see a sell off of those high yielders in favour of fixed income. A company like BEI is less likely to be impacted because it had a smaller yield to begin with.
Mat