Reflections on MK1 REIT Index

I wonder what a table looks like if I just paste it in here?
Value Growth sum
name price current distribution current yield 2008 2007 2006 2005 average Quintiles
allied properties 19.1 1.32 6.91% 4.76% 2.94% 3.76% 3.47% 3.74% 10.65% 3
artis 14.28 1.08 7.56% 2.27% 0.00% 0.57% 0.57% 0.85% 8.42% 2
boardwalk 34.05 1.8 5.29% 12.53% 8.11% 17.43% 1.94% 10.00% 15.29% 5
canadian apartment properties 16.2 1.08 6.67% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 6.67% 1
crombie 10.65 0.8904 8.36% 4.51% 4.41% 1.49% 3.47% 11.83% 4
cominar 21.13 1.44 6.81% 6.19% 10.78% 2.00% 0.00% 4.74% 11.56% 4
calloway 19.15 1.548 8.08% 0.00% 3.20% 3.48% 15.05% 5.43% 13.51% 5
dundee 30.1 2.196 7.30% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 7.30% 2
huntingdon 1.27 0.2796 22.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 22.02% 5
H&R 14.87 1.44 9.68% 5.08% 2.70% 2.30% 4.82% 3.72% 13.41% 5
interrent 2.15 0.2604 12.11% -31.55% -31.55% -19.43% 1
lanesborough 5.2 0.564 10.85% 0.00% 0.00% 0.64% 0.00% 0.16% 11.01% 4
morguard 12.15 0.9 7.41% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 7.41% 2
norther properties 23 1.4796 6.43% 0.00% 7.22% 5.50% 4.61% 4.33% 10.77% 3
primaris 16.26 1.2192 7.50% 3.67% 3.16% 0.00% 5.56% 3.10% 10.59% 3
canadian realestate investment trust 28.15 1.3596 4.83% 2.26% 2.59% 1.22% 1.62% 1.92% 6.75% 1
riocan 20.16 1.35 6.70% 0.00% 2.27% 2.33% 2.38% 1.74% 8.44% 2
retrocom 3.5 0.45 12.86% -25.00% 0.00% -26.79% -20.02% -17.95% -5.10% 1
scotts 5.92 0.8496 14.35% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 14.35% 5
whiterock 9.51 1.122 11.80% -0.53% 0.00% 0.86% 0.00% 0.08% 11.88% 4

That's messy to the point of nonsensical. If you can somehow comprehend it, what's interesting about this? To start with my top picks on this method are Boardwalk, Calloway, Huntingdon, H&R, and Scott's. Three of those, I'm ok with. Boardwalk has show good growth and I know they're a big player where residential real estate is concerned. H&R is number two by market cap, so obviously a lot of other people feel that it's worth putting a lot of money into. Calloway as I recall is Walmart's largest landlord in Canada. Very solid anchor tenant. Huntingdon is one that I don't feel comfortable holding a major position in. It scores high on yield, but that's because investors are fleeing. That's something my methodology doesn't work well on, so some tweaking is to be required. I can manually ax it from the list, though that leaves me wondering what to do with H&R, which has taken a considerable slide lately ever since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The last name on there is one that I think I like. Scott's, while having a high yield, looks actually stable. It's down considerably from 12 months ago, but it spent the past 5 months hovering around $6. We're in the middle of a major dip in the markets and it is still around $6. There was also a big dip in July, it held steady at around $6. So unlike huntingdon, this doesn't appear to be the result of a distress sale. Latest headlines say that they're making acquisitions and their Q2 earnings report says revenue is up 23% and payout ratio is improving. This might actually be a good name to run with, as the methodology suggests. Granted, they have yet to increase distributions since starting.
In the next tier of stuff, there's Crombie, Cominar, Lanesborough and Whiterock. Four names I don't hear much about. Half of them have shown some growth, the other half hasn't. This raises the question of whether or not all of these are stable/growing. I'll just assume the growing ones are actually growing and cut down the amount of work I need to do. This of course brings to mind another question, if I need to look into almost every company in the list, why bother indexing? Isn't indexing supposed to make things easier? Well, I need to know that my methodology works.
When I look into lanesborough, the first headline on their website is that they're back in the black, which is a cause for concern for me. I like to know why they were loosing money. I also know nothing about what they do, but why they're loosing money has yanked my attention first. The news release claims that a large percentage of their properties are under construction or under lease. A closer look reveals that yes, there are properties that are under construction and some with some very low occupancy rates. It also shows that revenues are increasing quickly. I also see that they're paying out more in distributions than their fund flow from operations. This troubles me. For now, I'm just going to wait and see what happens with it. When converting from play money to real money, this will probably be one of the last ones I buy.
So, what about whiterock? According to the fact sheet on their website, FFO surpassed the distribution rate sometime in Q4 last year. They're landlords to a lot of government offices. Also claim to be making accretive acquisitions and they have access to credit with TD. It's nice having a quick sheet to look at that doesn't force me to wade through financial statements that I still find somewhat cryptic. Though I am looking at them anyway and while I don't feel confident in my ability to read them, things seem decent. I'm hesitant to say they look good, but mainly due to I'm still not entirely convinced I'm fully understanding everything.
Since time is precious, for now I'll refrain from looking up every other name on the list. It's not real money anyway and I can look into things further when I actually have the money to invest.
Another interesting thing to note, Riocan is actually near the bottom of the heap, which I'm not sure I'm ok with. If I had to guess why, I'd assume it's because it's considered a safer place and fewer people have decided to sell off their holdings. Thus it isn't as good of a deal as other reits right now, however remains a high quality investment. Of course, this is all just the uneducated speculation of a first time investor.
Of course, there's still one more next step, translating percentages into actual lots of units. I don't really like the idea of having a lot of odd lots of everything. After that, there's the saving up of money followed by the actual buying of stuff.