NEW YORK CITY—The outlook for the US REIT sector as a whole has been upgraded to "positive" for 2015, Fitch Ratings says. What the ratings agency terms “secular changes” are responsible for enhancing credit profiles within the sector, and Fitch says it believes they'll be maintained for the foreseeable future.

Specifically, those secular changes include “portfolio focus and tactical diversification, lower risk growth strategies, good liquidity management, minimal share repurchase risk and enhancements to capital access via at-the-market equity programs,” according to the Fitch report, prepared by a team of analysts led by managing director Steven Marks. “All of these elements are currently reflected in Fitch's issuer ratings and Rating Outlooks; in many cases, issuers with Positive Rating Outlooks have embraced many of these credit-enhancing rating drivers.”

Fitch says it's maintaining its “stable” ratings outlook for US equity REITs in the coming year, in view of its expectations for “continued solid liquidity driven by good access to capital, improving property-level fundamentals across nearly all asset classes and lower-risk strategies.” Since 2010, Fitch says, 14% of its rating actions on REITs have been upgrades, 6% were downgrades and the remaining 80% were affirmations. “Upgrades have generally been driven by issuer-specific circumstances, such as deleveraging efforts or improved access to capital, and do not reflect broader cyclical trends within the sector.”