W.P. Carey Stock Up 22.7% Year to Date: Will It Continue to Rise?

W.P. Carey (WPC) shares have rallied 22.7% year to date, outperforming the industry's upside of 1%.

The company’s mission-critical, single-tenant net lease commercial diverse portfolio, with contractual rent bumps, strategic portfolio repositioning and a healthy balance sheet, is a key upside.

Last month, WPC announced a 1.1% hike in its dividend. The company will now pay a quarterly cash dividend of 91 cents per share, up from 90 cents paid in the prior quarter. The increased amount will be paid out on Oct. 15 to shareholders on record as of Sept. 30, 2025.

Analysts seem bullish about this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2025 FFO per share has been revised northward by 3 cents to $4.91 over the past week.

Factors Behind WPC Stock Price Rise: Will This Trend Last?

W.P. Carey has one of the largest portfolios of single-tenant net lease commercial real estate in the United States, and Northern and Western Europe. The company invests in high-quality assets that are mission-critical for its tenants’ operations. WPC specializes in sale-leaseback transactions, whereby it acquires critical real estate and then leases it back to the seller on a long-term, triple-net basis. Under this arrangement, the lessee needs to pay the majority of the operational and maintenance costs for the property. As such, W.P. Carey can generate steady revenues with minimal investments.

Moreover, W.P. Carey’s portfolio is well-diversified by tenant, industry, property type and geography, aiding steady revenue generation. Moreover, the existence of long-term net leases with built-in rent escalations yields stable cash flows. As of June 30, 2025, its portfolio has a weighted average lease term of 12.1 years. More than 99% of ABR comes from leases with contractual rent increases, with 50% linked to the consumer price index.

W.P. Carey has been capitalizing on growth opportunities. The total investment value from the beginning of the year through Sept. 4 reached $1.3 billion, and the disposition volume was around $875 million. For 2025, management expects total investments between $1.4 and $1.8 billion and total dispositions between $900 million and $1.3 billion. The gross sale proceeds from the sale of non-core assets are to be used for funding value-accretive investments. Such match-funding efforts indicate the company’s prudent capital-management practices and will relieve pressure from its balance sheet, which is encouraging.

W.P. Carey has a healthy balance sheet position with ample liquidity. As of June 30, 2025, the company had a total liquidity of $1.7 billion, including around $1.3 billion of available capacity under its senior unsecured credit facility. The company’s share of pro rata net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 5.8X. The company also enjoys investment-grade ratings of BBB+ from S&P Global Ratings and Baa1 from Moody’s, rendering it favorable access to the debt market.

Key Risks for WPC

Due to the uncertain macroeconomic situation with policy changes, choppiness in the real estate market continues with subdued demand, which is a concern for W.P. Carey. Tenant bankruptcy woes also ail.

Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Welltower WELL and Digital Realty Trust DLR, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WELL’s 2025 FFO per share stands at $5.12, indicating an increase of 18.5% year over year.

The consensus estimate for DLR’s 2025 FFO per share is pegged at $7.21, suggesting a year-over-year increase of 7.5%.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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