Welcome to 2025, where AI writes bedtime stories, your fridge judges your diet, and some REITs—Real Estate Investment Trusts, for those just tuning in—have gone from steady dividend darlings to full-blown dumpster fires. If you're holding onto certain REITs like they're still the golden geese of the income world, you might want to check if that golden egg smells more like sulfur and regret.
Don’t worry. We’re not here to shame. We’re here to help—help you put down the matchstick and step away from the flaming garbage heap of bad real estate investments before they torch your portfolio.
So, grab your fire extinguisher (or just your brokerage login), and let’s look at REITs you need to dump like a bad ex in 2025.
What Happened to REITs?
Let’s back up a little. REITs were once the crown jewels of retirement portfolios. They paid consistent dividends, offered exposure to real estate without the headaches of clogged toilets and late-night tenant calls, and made boomers feel warm and fuzzy inside.
But 2025 isn’t 2015.
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High interest rates have turned once-cheap debt into an expensive nightmare.
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Office real estate? Still gasping like a fish out of water in the post-Zoom age.
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Retail REITs? Let’s just say “going to the mall” is now slang for “I need to cry in an empty parking lot.”
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Housing REITs? Have you seen mortgage rates? The affordability crisis is now a full-blown affordability apocalypse.
REITs that haven’t adapted? They’re not just struggling—they’re smoldering.
🔥 Dumpster Fire #1: Office Properties Income Trust (OPI)
Ticker: $OPI
Dividend Yield: LOL (as of Q2 2025, it's basically nonexistent)
Remember when OPI tried to sound classy with "Income Trust" in their name? That was cute.
Fast forward to 2025, and they’ve become the poster child for everything wrong with office REITs. Their tenants? Ghosted. Their buildings? Half-full, at best. Their balance sheet? Reading it feels like browsing a post-apocalyptic survival blog.
Despite a desperate attempt to pivot toward “flexible coworking space,” all they’ve done is collect tech startup corpses and empty espresso machines. And don’t even get us started on their debt maturity schedule—it’s like watching a slow-moving car crash in quarterly increments.
Verdict: SELL. Unless you want to invest in empty elevators and broken Keurigs.
🔥 Dumpster Fire #2: Seritage Growth Properties (SRG)
Ticker: $SRG
Dividend Yield: Nonexistent. Hasn’t paid one since 2020.
Oh, Seritage. You had one job—redevelop old Sears properties into something less depressing. Instead, you turned them into oversized liabilities with sentimental value and asbestos issues.
By 2025, Seritage still hasn’t sold off all of its junkyard portfolio. The few projects that did get completed now sit awkwardly in half-gentrified neighborhoods like modern art installations: expensive, misunderstood, and mostly useless.
The company tried to reinvent itself as a redevelopment specialist. But the cash burn, the delays, and the curse of “former Sears locations” has haunted every effort.
Verdict: This isn’t a REIT. It’s a long, expensive goodbye.
🔥 Dumpster Fire #3: Global Net Lease (GNL)
Ticker: $GNL
Dividend Yield: 15% (aka, the market is screaming “run!”)
Here’s the thing: when a REIT has a double-digit yield, it’s not a gift. It’s a warning flare.
GNL made headlines for their massive payout, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find a business model stitched together with duct tape and delusion. In 2024, they merged with The Necessity Retail REIT (RTL) in what can only be described as a “together we die slower” strategy.
Now in 2025, they’re still trying to sell off properties, restructure debt, and pretend like the market hasn’t completely lost faith in them. Their earnings reports read like Shakespearean tragedies.
Verdict: That juicy dividend is a trap. Sell before it becomes a eulogy.
🔥 Dumpster Fire #4: SL Green Realty (SLG)
Ticker: $SLG
Dividend Yield: ~9% and climbing—for the wrong reasons
SLG is New York City’s largest office landlord. And in case you haven’t noticed, nobody wants to commute to an overpriced cubicle when they can Slack from bed.
To its credit, SL Green tried to lean into high-end amenities and luxury offices. Problem is, that’s like putting gold rims on a Yugo. The core issue—demand—is still broken. Even the Wall Street bros are retreating to their Jersey home offices.
Vacancies are up, refinancing is tough, and debt is as thick as New York pizza crust. SLG might not collapse tomorrow, but the trajectory is alarmingly downward.
Verdict: If you love burning money and faint hope, this one’s for you. Otherwise, flee.
🔥 Dumpster Fire #5: Diversified Healthcare Trust (DHC)
Ticker: $DHC
Dividend Yield: Who even knows anymore
Healthcare REITs were supposed to be recession-proof. Aging population, steady demand, blah blah. But Diversified Healthcare Trust missed the memo—and then lit it on fire.
Their senior housing properties? Ravaged by staff shortages and rising costs. Their skilled nursing facilities? Regulatory minefields. And their balance sheet? A debt balloon tied to a ticking time bomb.
In 2023, they tried to merge with OPI in a desperate bid for survival. That failed. Now in 2025, they’re still hemorrhaging cash like a med school dropout with a chainsaw.
Verdict: The only thing “diversified” here is the number of ways this can go wrong.
🧯Dishonorable Mentions
These REITs didn’t quite make it to full-on dumpster fire territory, but they’re smoldering:
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Medical Properties Trust (MPW): One lawsuit away from implosion.
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EPR Properties (EPR): Theaters and entertainment aren’t the stable income streams they pretended to be.
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Whitestone REIT (WSR): A Sunbelt strip mall party… with all the structural integrity of a bounce house.
📉 What to Look for (Before You Get Burned)
Before you start panic-selling every REIT in your portfolio, here are red flags to help you spot a future flaming mess:
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Sky-high yields: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. 14% yield = 90% chance of dividend cut.
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Too much debt: Especially when refinancing costs more than your cousin's second wedding.
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Dying sectors: Office, retail, and certain healthcare REITs are still trying to survive 2020.
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Negative AFFO trends: Adjusted Funds From Operations is the REIT equivalent of cash flow. If it’s going down quarter after quarter, so is your sanity.
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Shady management: Mergers, spin-offs, and “strategic alternatives” are often code for “we have no idea what we’re doing.”
🧭 So Where Should You Look?
Not all REITs are trash. Some are downright solid in 2025. You just have to know where to dig.
Here are a few categories that aren’t on fire:
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Industrial REITs: Think warehouses and logistics centers (e.g., Prologis). Thanks, e-commerce.
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Data Center REITs: AI boom = server farms = profits.
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Residential REITs in growing markets: Sunbelt multifamily units are still hot—if you avoid the over-leveraged ones.
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Self-storage REITs: Because people never stop accumulating junk.
TL;DR: Find REITs with strong balance sheets, rising AFFO, and exposure to sectors people actually use.
🚒 Final Thoughts: Don’t Roast Your Retirement
Look, REITs are still a valuable part of any diversified portfolio—but not if you’re clinging to flaming disasters like OPI or GNL out of misplaced loyalty or dividend FOMO.
It’s 2025. You can automate your investments, scan your groceries with your watch, and probably file your taxes with a smart toilet. There’s no excuse for investing in REITs that are actively incinerating your capital while pretending everything is fine.
Ditch the dumpster fires. Embrace the boring winners. And maybe, just maybe, your portfolio will stop smelling like burnt dreams.
Disclosures: This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Always do your own research. And if you're still holding Seritage in 2025… please seek emotional support.