This issue of ORA™ Power Rankings features the Top REITs with the best online reputation in the nation. We rank the REITs in terms of their overall performance in online reputation in calendar year 2015. We first assessed the online reputation of the public REITs in February 2015.
The star performing REIT in this ranking is AvalonBay Communities. The company increased its ORA™ score from 47 in 2014 to 77 in 2015 to seal its ranking at the top spot. AvalonBay ranked No. 5 in 2014.
Some notable trends of this ranking compared with the last ranking:
- Overall, the ORA™ scores of the top-performing REITs have improved. The highest score registered in this ranking is 77, compared with 66 last year.
- More than half of the REITs are performing above the national average ORA™ score of 54.9.
- Three REITs have advanced their ORA™ scores by more than 20 points to register higher rankings in 2016—Avalon Bay, Aimco, and Post Properties.
- The online reputation of the REITs has improved significantly in the past year: The average ORA™ score of the top REITs increased from 51 in 2014 to 60 in 2015.
- The REITs' ORA™ scores have increased nearly 18% .
Post Properties scaled up from the fourth position in 2014 to rank second this year. It has upped its ORA™ score from 50 to 72.
The third-biggest gainer this past year was Aimco, which jumped from the seventh spot to tie with MAA for the third spot in 2015. Aimco’s ORA™ score has increased from 45 to 71.

2016 Rank | Change from 2015 | REIT |
ORA Score |
---|---|---|---|
1 | +4 | AvalonBay Communities, Inc | 77 |
2 | +2 | Post Properties | 72 |
3 | +4 | AIMCO | 71 |
3 | -2 | MAA | 71 |
4 | -2 | Camden Property Trust | 66 |
5 | +1 | UDR, Inc. | 58 |
6 | -1 | Essex Property Trust, Inc. | 54 |
7 | *N/A | Steadfast Companies | 53 |
8 | -3 | Equity Residentials | 51 |
9 | *N/A | Monarch Properties, Inc. | 46 |
* REITs not ranked in February 2015 ranking
For more information on ORA™ Power Rankings, please visit http://www.jturnerresearch.com/orarankings
Methodology
In an ongoing series of ORA™ Power Rankings, MFE periodically publishes a new ranking of apartment properties and management companies based on different parameters. ORA™ Power Rankings is powered by J Turner Research. To arrive at the aggregated score, J Turner Research tracks and analyzes the online reputation of more than 14 million units and 56,000-plus apartment properties across all ratings websites and ILSs, on a monthly basis. To overcome the challenge of multiple ratings scales, the company has devised a statistical model to establish a single score for each property. This score, based on a 0-100 scale, serves as a benchmark to compare and contrast individual properties—and portfolios—nationally.
Questions:
Please contact the J Turner Research team at [email protected].