Comparing Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) & Apple Hospitality REIT (NYSE:APLE)

Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) and Apple Hospitality REIT (NYSE:APLE) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Gladstone Land and Apple Hospitality REIT’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%
Apple Hospitality REIT	14.58%	6.11%	4.07%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Gladstone Land and Apple Hospitality REIT’s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gladstone Land	$90.40 million	5.86	$14.56 million	$0.06	246.54
Apple Hospitality REIT	$1.34 billion	2.69	$177.49 million	$0.86	17.35

Apple Hospitality REIT has higher revenue and earnings than Gladstone Land. Apple Hospitality REIT 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 and Institutional Ownership

53.6% of Gladstone Land shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.7% of Apple Hospitality REIT shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.2% of Gladstone Land shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 6.8% of Apple Hospitality REIT shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Gladstone Land has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Apple Hospitality REIT has a beta of 1.11, suggesting that its stock price is 11% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Gladstone Land pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Apple Hospitality REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.96 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.4%. 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. Apple Hospitality REIT pays out 111.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Apple Hospitality REIT is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Gladstone Land and Apple Hospitality REIT, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gladstone Land	0	1	3	0	2.75
Apple Hospitality REIT	0	4	2	0	2.33

Gladstone Land presently has a consensus target price of $16.00, suggesting a potential upside of 8.18%. Apple Hospitality REIT has a consensus target price of $17.40, suggesting a potential upside of 16.58%. Given Apple Hospitality REIT’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Apple Hospitality REIT is more favorable than Gladstone Land.

Summary

Apple Hospitality REIT beats Gladstone Land on 10 of the 16 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 Apple Hospitality REIT

Apple Hospitality REIT, Inc. (NYSE: APLE) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns one of the largest and most diverse portfolios of upscale, rooms-focused hotels in the United States. Apple Hospitality's portfolio consists of 223 hotels with more than 29,400 guest rooms located in 87 markets throughout 37 states as well as one property leased to third parties. Concentrated with industry-leading brands, the Company's hotel portfolio consists of 99 Marriott-branded hotels, 119 Hilton-branded hotels and five Hyatt-branded hotels.