Contrasting Franklin Street Properties (NYSE:FSP) & BRT Apartments (NYSE:BRT)

BRT Apartments (NYSE:BRT) and Franklin Street Properties (NYSE:FSP) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

29.1% of BRT Apartments shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.4% of Franklin Street Properties shares are held by institutional investors. 40.2% of BRT Apartments shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.2% of Franklin Street Properties shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

BRT Apartments has a beta of 1.06, suggesting that its stock price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Franklin Street Properties has a beta of 0.82, suggesting that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares BRT Apartments and Franklin Street Properties’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BRT Apartments	5.10%	2.06%	0.67%
Franklin Street Properties	-52.85%	-10.06%	-6.46%

Dividends

BRT Apartments pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.6%. Franklin Street Properties pays an annual dividend of $0.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. BRT Apartments pays out 454.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Franklin Street Properties pays out -7.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BRT Apartments and Franklin Street Properties’ top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BRT Apartments	$93.98 million	3.53	$3.87 million	$0.22	80.86
Franklin Street Properties	$133.73 million	1.21	-$48.11 million	($0.56)	-2.79

BRT Apartments has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Franklin Street Properties. Franklin Street Properties is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BRT Apartments, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for BRT Apartments and Franklin Street Properties, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BRT Apartments	0	0	2	0	3.00
Franklin Street Properties	0	0	0	0	N/A

BRT Apartments currently has a consensus target price of $22.25, suggesting a potential upside of 25.07%. Given BRT Apartments’ higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe BRT Apartments is more favorable than Franklin Street Properties.

Summary

BRT Apartments beats Franklin Street Properties on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BRT Apartments

BRT is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and, to a lesser extent, holds interests in joint ventures that own multi-family properties. As of December 31, 2023, BRT owns or has interests in 28 multi-family properties with 7,707 units in 11 states.

About Franklin Street Properties

Franklin Street Properties Corp., based in Wakefield, Massachusetts, is focused on infill and central business district (CBD) office properties in the U.S. Sunbelt and Mountain West, as well as select opportunistic markets. FSP seeks value-oriented investments with an eye towards long-term growth and appreciation, as well as current income. FSP is a Maryland corporation that operates in a manner intended to qualify as a real estate investment trust (REIT) for federal income tax purposes.