Contrasting Kilroy Realty (NYSE:KRC) & Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND)

Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) and Kilroy Realty (NYSE:KRC) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation, risk, institutional ownership and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares Gladstone Land and Kilroy Realty’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gladstone Land	29.49%	3.63%	1.89%
Kilroy Realty	18.43%	3.63%	1.81%

Risk & Volatility

Gladstone Land has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kilroy Realty has a beta of 1.04, suggesting that its stock price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Gladstone Land and Kilroy Realty, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gladstone Land	0	1	3	0	2.75
Kilroy Realty	0	6	5	0	2.45

Gladstone Land presently has a consensus price target of $16.00, indicating a potential upside of 18.52%. Kilroy Realty has a consensus price target of $38.50, indicating a potential upside of 23.08%. Given Kilroy Realty’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Kilroy Realty is more favorable than Gladstone Land.

Dividends

Gladstone Land pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Kilroy Realty pays an annual dividend of $2.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.9%. Gladstone Land pays out 933.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Kilroy Realty pays out 124.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Kilroy Realty is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Gladstone Land and Kilroy Realty’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gladstone Land	$90.40 million	5.35	$14.56 million	$0.06	225.04
Kilroy Realty	$1.13 billion	3.25	$212.24 million	$1.74	17.98

Kilroy Realty has higher revenue and earnings than Gladstone Land. Kilroy Realty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Gladstone Land, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

53.6% of Gladstone Land shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.2% of Kilroy Realty shares are held by institutional investors. 7.1% of Gladstone Land shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.5% of Kilroy Realty shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Kilroy Realty beats Gladstone Land on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Gladstone Land

Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The Company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 169 farms, comprised of approximately 116,000 acres in 15 different states and over 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at a total of approximately $1.6 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The Company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 20-plus years and harvested annually. Approximately 40% of the Company's fresh produce acreage is either organic or in transition to become organic, and over 10% of its permanent crop acreage falls into this category. The Company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 129 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The Company has increased its common distributions 32 times over the prior 35 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0464 per month, or $0.5568 per year.

About Kilroy Realty

Kilroy Realty Corporation (NYSE: KRC, the company, Kilroy) is a leading U.S. landlord and developer, with operations in San Diego, Greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Greater Seattle and Austin. The company has earned global recognition for sustainability, building operations, innovation and design. As a pioneer and innovator in the creation of a more sustainable real estate industry, the company's approach to modern business environments helps drive creativity and productivity for some of the world's leading technology, entertainment, life science and business services companies. The company is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) and member of the S&P MidCap 400 Index with more than seven decades of experience developing, acquiring and managing office, life science and mixed-use projects. As of December 31, 2023, Kilroy's stabilized portfolio totaled approximately 17.0 million square feet of primarily office and life science space that was 85.0% occupied and 86.4% leased. The company also had approximately 1,000 residential units in Hollywood and San Diego, which had a quarterly average occupancy of 92.5%. In addition, the company had two in-process life science redevelopment projects totaling approximately 100,000 square feet with total estimated redevelopment costs of $80.0 million and one approximately 875,000 square foot in-process development project with a total estimated investment of $1.0 billion.