WSR Rewards Investors With 5.6% Dividend Hike: Is it Sustainable?

Whitestone REIT WSR recently announced that its board of trustees has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 14.25 cents per share on its common shares and operating partnership units. This represents a 5.6% increase from the previous quarterly payout of 13.50 cents per share. The new dividend will be paid on March 30, 2026, to the company’s shareholders of record as of March 16, 2026.

Post the dividend hike, the annualized dividend payout now comes to 57 cents per share. At this new rate, the annualized yield is 4.19%, based on the stock’s closing price of $13.60 on Dec. 19, 2025.

Apart from a dividend hike, the company’s board of trustees authorized a share repurchase program of up to $50 million. With this, the company remains committed to increasing shareholder value.

Per Dave Holeman, CEO of Whitestone, “We remain squarely focused on delivering our 5 - 7% long-term Core FFO per share growth target and matching that steady growth with dividend growth. We look forward to continuing to leverage our leadership position in high-value shop space to deliver for shareholders.”

Solid dividend payouts remain the biggest attractions for real estate investment trust (REIT) investors, and WSR has remained committed to that. The company has increased its dividend five times in the last five years, and its five-year annualized dividend growth rate is 5.28%. Check out Whitestone REIT’s dividend history here. The recent dividend hike indicates its ability to generate decent cash flow through its operating portfolio.

In the past three months, shares of this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company have gained 6.3% against the industry's decline of 1.4%.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Welltower WELL and Cousins Properties CUZ, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Welltower’s 2025 FFO per share is pinned at $5.25, implying year-over-year growth of 21.5%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Cousins Properties’ 2025 FFO per share is pegged at $2.84, indicating an increase of 5.6% from the year-ago reported figure.

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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