The simple version

Accounting profit treats a building as something that wears out, so it subtracts a yearly write-down even when the building has gained in worth. For a firm whose whole business is buildings, that write-down swamps the result.

So the industry settled on a measure that adds the write-down back and leaves out gains and losses on property sales. That is the standard version.

Then each firm publishes its own adjusted version on top of the standard one. Those are the figures you see quoted, and no two are built the same way.

The numbers

• Phillips Edison and Company printed all three figures for the third quarter of 2026 in one release: net income attributable to stockholders of $62.7 million, or $0.49 per diluted share; Nareit FFO of $98.0 million, or $0.69 per diluted share; and Core FFO of $100.7 million, or $0.71 per diluted share. Filed with the SEC on October 26, 2026.
• That release quotes the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, which it abbreviates Nareit, as defining FFO as net income computed in accordance with GAAP, excluding gains or losses from sales of property and from change in control, depreciation and amortization related to real estate, and impairment losses on real estate.
• The same release says the company's own Nareit FFO and Core FFO, as presented, may not be comparable to amounts calculated by other REITs, and that neither should be viewed as more prominent measures of performance than net income or cash flows from operations prepared under GAAP.
• Brixmor Property Group reported net income attributable to the company of $87.8 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, and Nareit FFO of $184.6 million, or $0.60 per diluted share. It used the Nareit label throughout and published no company-adjusted version in that release. Filed October 26, 2026.
• Welltower reported net income attributable to common stockholders of $0.54 per diluted share and quarterly normalized funds from operations attributable to common stockholders of $1.67 per diluted share, an increase of 24.6 percent over the prior year. Its headline measure is the normalized one. Filed October 26, 2026.
• Public Storage printed net income and Core FFO per share side by side in one table: net income of $1.69 against $2.62 a year earlier, a decrease of $0.93 or 35.5 percent, and Core FFO of $4.34 against $4.31, an increase of $0.03 or 0.7 percent. Filed October 26, 2026.
• American Tower, in a release filed October 27, 2026, printed Nareit Funds From Operations attributable to its common stockholders of $1,165 million, down 7.7 percent, on the line directly above AFFO, meaning adjusted funds from operations, of $1,335 million, up 2.4 percent. AFFO per share was $2.87, up 3.2 percent, against net income attributable to common stockholders of $1.64 per diluted share, down 9.9 percent.
• That release names both measures in its list of non-GAAP measures, and its consolidated highlights list includes AFFO and does not mention the Nareit figure anywhere. So the standard measure fell while the company measure rose, in the same table, with only the second one in the highlights.
• Counting across the five filings read here, the family carries four names: Nareit FFO, Core FFO, normalized FFO and AFFO.
• Figures read in the filings themselves at the SEC on October 27, 2026. Each is the company's own exhibit to a Form 8-K, not a summary.

Why one measure ends up with several names

The trade group's definition is narrow on purpose. It names a short list of items to leave out and stops there, which is what lets one firm be read against another.

Narrow also means it leaves in items a firm considers one-off: a payment for ending a lease early, a cost for paying off debt early, a deal expense. Each firm therefore publishes a second figure with its own longer list of removals.

Nothing stops two firms choosing different lists, and nothing requires either to match the other. That is why the firms themselves print a warning about reading their figures against anybody else's.

The actual math on the gap between the two measures

Set each firm's headline measure against its own net income per share, as a multiple. Across the five filings the results are 1.4 times, 2.1 times, 3.1 times, 2.6 times and 1.8 times.

If the adjustment were a fixed accounting convention the multiple would be roughly similar. It is not, because what each firm writes down and what each one leaves out are different.

Two of the five are sharper still. The self-storage firm reported net income down 35.5 percent and its own adjusted measure up 0.7 percent, and another reported the standard measure down 7.7 percent and its own measure up 2.4 percent. The multiples above are our arithmetic on figures the firms published; every percentage is a firm's own.

What this means

When you read that a landlord company beat or missed, check which of its measures the number came from. A beat on the company version and a fall in accounting profit can be the same quarter.

Comparing two of these companies on their headline figures is the thing to avoid, because each headline is built to its own recipe. The standard version is the one that compares, and it is usually printed a few lines further down.

The transferable habit is to look for the reconciliation table. A company that publishes an adjusted figure has to show the bridge from the accounting one, and the bridge is where the argument actually is.

What this is NOT

This article explains how funds from operations differs from accounting profit and how a company-adjusted version differs from the trade group's standard one, using third-quarter 2026 exhibits filed with the SEC on October 26 and 27, 2026 by Phillips Edison and Company, Brixmor Property Group, Welltower, Public Storage and American Tower, all read on October 27, 2026. It is not investment advice about any of those companies or about real estate investment trusts generally, it is not a recommendation to buy or sell anything, and we do not give personalized advice. It is not a judgment that any company's adjusted measure is wrong or misleading; each one discloses its own definition and its own reconciliation, and several print warnings about comparability that we quote rather than editorialize on. The multiples in the math section are our division of figures the companies published and are not figures any company reported. American Tower headlines a further variant, adjusted funds from operations or AFFO, which is why this article counts four names rather than three, and we take no view on whether AFFO belongs in the same family as the other three. We have not read the reconciliation tables line by line and so make no claim about which specific items each company excludes beyond what its release states. We have not compared these companies on any other measure and take no view on their results. It says nothing about dividends, about property values, or about where any of these measures will go next, and it does not predict any later quarter. This is not a political endorsement or criticism of anyone.

Sources

• Phillips Edison and Company, Inc., Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, third quarter 2026 results, filed October 26, 2026, accession 0001476204-26-000052. Net income and both FFO figures per diluted share, the Nareit definition, and the comparability and prominence warnings. Read October 27, 2026.
• Brixmor Property Group Inc., Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, third quarter 2026 results, filed October 26, 2026, accession 0001581068-26-000032. Net income and Nareit FFO per diluted share. Read October 27, 2026.
• Welltower Inc., Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, third quarter 2026 results, filed October 26, 2026, accession 0000766704-26-000043. Net income per diluted share and normalized funds from operations per diluted share. Read October 27, 2026.
• Public Storage, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, third quarter 2026 results, filed October 26, 2026, accession 0001628280-26-067283. The table of net income and Core FFO per share with changes. Read October 27, 2026.
• American Tower Corporation, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, third quarter 2026 results, filed October 27, 2026, accession 0001053507-26-000154. Nareit Funds From Operations and AFFO with their growth rates, AFFO per share, net income attributable to common stockholders per diluted share, the list of non-GAAP measures naming both, and the consolidated highlights list. Read October 27, 2026.