WASHINGTON, DC—REITS took a half-step backward in the third quarter, with funds from operations declining 4.5% from Q2's record levels to $14.8 billion, Nareit said Tuesday. On a year-over-year basis, though, the total FFO for listed REITs was up 7.8%, and other Q3 metrics represented gains.

Nareit's quarterly Total REIT Industry Tracker Series showed that occupancy rates for all equity REITs rose 50 basis points in Q3, achieving a record high of 94.0% across the industry. For retail REITs in particular, the 50-bp increase brought 95.7%.

Accordingly, same-store NOI was up from the year-ago period, although the 3.2% Y-O-Y gain was little changed from Q2's increase of 3.3%. REIT segments posting the highest levels of SSNOI growth from the year-ago period included manufactured homes (7.1%); diversified (7.0%); single-family homes (6.8%); and industrials (4.7%). Total NOI dipped 1.5% from Q2, although Q3 NOI was up 6.9% from a year ago.