Retail REITs data: consumer spend and landlord fundamentals, in one catalog. · Head-to-head
Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance vs Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report
Which retail reits data: consumer spend and landlord fundamentals, in one catalog. data fits your job: Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance, or Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance
Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report (PDF/Data Tables)
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance | Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report |
|---|---|---|
ffo_millions_usd | documented | not in this set |
noi_millions_usd | documented | not in this set |
same_store_noi_growth_pct | documented | not in this set |
dividends_paid_millions_usd | documented | not in this set |
price_to_ffo | documented | not in this set |
occupancy_rate_pct | documented | not in this set |
debt_to_book_assets_pct | documented | not in this set |
debt_to_market_assets_pct | documented | not in this set |
interest_expense_to_noi | documented | not in this set |
net_acquisitions_millions_usd | documented | not in this set |
development_pipeline_millions_usd | documented | not in this set |
implied_cap_rate_pct | documented | not in this set |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance | Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report | |
|---|---|---|
| Category axis | `Metric label` crossed with `Sector breakdown` - FFO, NOI, Same Store NOI, Dividends Paid, Price/FFO, Occupancy Rates, Debt ratios, Net Acquisitions and more, per sector | `NAICS code` crossed with `Kind of Business` - e.g. 722 Food services & drinking places, 452 General merchandise stores, 44-45 Total retail |
| Period identifier | `Quarter code (YYYY.Q)` - column headers running '2000.1' through '2026.2' | Month and year columns per release, plus `Year-to-date total and % change` cumulative columns |
| Level values | `Value` in millions of dollars for flow measures and percent for ratios - e.g. Retail FFO of 1,052.773 in quarter 2000.1 | `Not Adjusted monthly sales` and `Adjusted monthly sales` in millions of dollars - e.g. NAICS 722 at 107,179 not adjusted, 103,555 adjusted for July 2026 |
| Percent changes | `Percent change Q/Q and over year ago` rows accompanying FFO, NOI per share and dividends per share | `Percent change columns` in Table 2 - month-over-month and year-over-year per kind of business |
| Data-quality encoding | `Interest Coverage Ratio bins` distributing REIT coverage across bins sorted alphabetically by company | `(*) / (S) / (NA) flags` - insignificant change at 90% confidence, cells withheld when CV exceeds 30%, not-available markers |
| Sampling and precision | None - a near-complete enumeration of the listed REIT universe compiled from filings | `CV / standard error` in Table 3 quantifying sampling variability of estimates drawn from about 4,800 sampled firms |
| Revision status | Each quarterly workbook is the settled record of its quarter | Advance, preliminary `(p)` and revised `(r)` flags travel on every estimate |
What each does better
the Nareit T-Tracker
Depth of history per entity. Quarter codes run from 2000.1 forward - roughly 107 quarters, two and a half decades of comparable readings on the same industry panel.
Balance-sheet detail at sector grain. Beyond the income measures sit debt-to-book and debt-to-market assets, shareholders equity over assets, weighted-average interest rate and term to maturity - 5.8 years at 4.2%, 89.8% fixed-rate on the latest read - plus interest coverage distributions sorted by company, cash and securities, secured versus unsecured debt, undrawn credit, dividend payout, an implied cap rate of 5.7%, gross acquisitions of $24.4 billion against $8.9 billion of dispositions, the development pipeline and property holdings at undepreciated book value.
the Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report
Cadence and timeliness of the demand signal. Twelve readings a year against the tracker's four, each an advance estimate of total consumer spend - $763.6 billion for July 2026 alone, covering that reference month end to end. For any model that needs to know what shoppers did this month rather than how landlords reported last quarter, MARTS is the faster instrument.
Kind-of-business detail the REIT lens cannot see. Table 1 breaks sales out to NAICS subsector and 3-4 digit detail - food services and drinking places (NAICS 722) alone estimated at $107.2 billion not adjusted for July 2026, up 4.2% year to date - categories that cut across property types, so a single mall's trade shows up spread across several MARTS lines.
Statistical honesty built into the tables. Table 2 carries month-to-month and year-over-year percent changes per kind of business; Table 3 quantifies sampling variability with coefficients of variation and standard errors; the fixed-width text series even ship seasonal factors beside the raw values (July 2026 food services: 103,555 against a factor of 1.035). Advance-versus-revised status travels on every cell.
The verdict
Pick the Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance when the unit of analysis is the property company: modelling FFO and NOI trajectories by sector, tracking same-store growth and occupancy cycles, screening balance-sheet risk through leverage, coverage ratios and debt maturity walls, timing acquisition and development pipelines, or pricing retail REITs against their own twenty-five-year history.
Pick the Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report (PDF/Data Tables) when the unit of analysis is the sale: nowcasting consumer spending, deflating or seasonally-adjusting retail revenue series, feeding macro models with a timely monthly indicator, or benchmarking a tenant category's momentum against the national baseline for its NAICS line.
Three quick tests settle most cases. Need occupancy, leverage or same-store NOI? Only the tracker has them. Need this month's sales for a kind of business? Only the federal release has them. Need to explain REIT performance with the demand signal underneath it? That is the both-of-them case.
Sample both, pick by fit. See Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance · See Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report
Fair questions
Is the Nareit T-Tracker Quarterly Operating Performance better than the Census Advance Monthly Retail Sales Report?
Different instruments measuring different sides of retail - 9 out of 10 against 8 out of 10. The tracker wins when the question is landlord economics: FFO, NOI, same-store growth, occupancy and leverage by property sector across roughly 107 quarters. The sales report wins when the question is what consumers spent this month, estimated nationally by kind of business. Sample both and match each to the question.
Which dataset has more history?
Depends how you count. The sales archive reaches back to October 1953, with per-kind-of-business series from 1992 forward. The T-Tracker starts at Q1 2000 but keeps the full metric stack - FFO, NOI, occupancy, leverage, acquisitions - consistent across every one of its roughly 107 quarters, which makes it the deeper panel even though it spans fewer years.
Do the two datasets overlap?
On framing, not on substance. Both report United States totals in millions of dollars with percent-change columns, and both carry quality markers. But the tracker counts what listed retail landlords earned - one sector's FFO in one quarter - while the sales report estimates what all consumers spent at one kind of business in one month. No company, store or transaction appears in both.
Can I combine REIT fundamentals with retail sales data?
Yes, on the calendar. Aligning each tracker quarter with the three sales months inside it puts sector NOI growth next to kind-of-business sales growth for the same period - useful for explaining retail REIT results with the demand signal underneath. Treat the seam honestly: different universes, different estimation methods and different revision behaviour keep the two tables distinct.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes. Either record arrives alone or both arrive aligned onto one timeline, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly - your call, with each series' cadence preserved. Name the property sectors, NAICS lines and quarter windows when you request the sample and it lands pre-cut, with field definitions and coverage profiles attached. Or take both in one feed.