We recently compiled a list of the 12 Best Real Estate and Realty Stocks To Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) stands against the other real estate stocks.
Real Estate So Far in 2025
As the US housing market headed into 2025, it witnessed good as well as bad news. Although the supply has increased with active listings in November 12.1% higher over the year, Redfin revealed that the majority of those homes had been on the market for at least 60 days without going under a sales contract, marking the highest share for any November since the year 2019.
While mortgage rates have averaged over 6% for the past 24 months, home buyers are not expecting mortgage rates to decline substantially. As the year ended, a rise in mortgage interest rates toward the end of December ended up impacting the mortgage demand. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index, total mortgage application volume for the two weeks ended December 27 declined 21.9% as compared with the week before that period. Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, reiterated the bitter impact of the mortgage rates moving higher through the last week of 2024 as he said:
“Not surprisingly, this increase in rates — at a time when housing activity typically grinds to a halt — resulted in declines in both refinance and purchase applications.”
Bess Freedman, Brown Harris Stevens CEO, pointed towards a troubling trifactor encompassing rates, inventory, and prices for this year. She expects the new year to be turbulent and volatile for the real estate although the public does have certainty with the president now which is good. Bess also talked about the US demographics and how first-time home buyers are older than ever, nearing 40s which is a bad sign indicating young people not being able to afford. While the situation around Trump’s tariffs and rates potentially going up remains unclear as of yet, homeownership continues to be an American dream in her opinion.
Our Methodology:
In order to compile a list of the 12 best real estate and realty stocks to buy now, we first use a stock screener to make an extended list of the relevant companies with the highest market caps. Moving on, we shortlisted the top 12 stocks from our list which had the highest number of hedge fund holders. The 12 best real estate and realty stocks to buy now have been arranged in ascending order of their hedge fund holders as of Q3.
At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with the stocks that hedge funds pile into. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A close-up of an array of cell towers on a distant hilltop.
Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 34
Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) serves as the largest provider of communications infrastructure in the United States. The company has 30 years of experience owning and operating network assets. It was founded in 1994 with an initial portfolio of 133 cell towers. In 1998, it went public with approximately 1,400 towers. Crown Castle now offers a nationwide footprint of towers, small cells, and fiber to help businesses and organizations connect to technologies and innovations.
The REIT has a presence in every major US market through over 40,000 cell towers, 105,000 on-air or under-contract small cells, and 90,000 route miles of fiber. The company is rightly positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for data in the United States and claims to have a strong trajectory with growth opportunities for the years to follow. The company is meant to offer the US wireless carriers with the prime real estate they require to run their networks. For tailwinds such as 5G and the Internet of Things which are to stay, the firm’s infrastructure solutions are crucial.
Amidst high merger activity in the fiber broadband sector, firms such as CCI boasting strong infrastructure assets tend to be attractive targets. TPG Inc. is currently in advanced talks to buy the company’s fiber business for nearly $8 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The potential sale would enable Crown Castle to focus on its core towers business. Shares of the REIT were up 2.1% in trading following the news.
Overall CCI ranks 10th on our list of the best real estate and realty stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential of CCI as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued AI stock that is more promising than CCI but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
