Mid-America Apartment Communities (NYSE:MAA) versus Clipper Realty (NYSE:CLPR) Head-To-Head Review

Clipper Realty (NYSE:CLPR) and Mid-America Apartment Communities (NYSE:MAA) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, risk and profitability.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Clipper Realty and Mid-America Apartment Communities”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Clipper Realty	$153.20 million	0.35	-$19.90 million	($0.93)	-3.58
Mid-America Apartment Communities	$2.21 billion	6.81	$446.91 million	$3.42	37.90

Mid-America Apartment Communities has higher revenue and earnings than Clipper Realty. Clipper Realty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mid-America Apartment Communities, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

37.6% of Clipper Realty shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.6% of Mid-America Apartment Communities shares are owned by institutional investors. 54.6% of Clipper Realty shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Mid-America Apartment Communities shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Clipper Realty and Mid-America Apartment Communities, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Clipper Realty	0	1	0	0	2.00
Mid-America Apartment Communities	1	11	8	0	2.35

Mid-America Apartment Communities has a consensus price target of $144.81, suggesting a potential upside of 11.71%. Given Mid-America Apartment Communities’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Mid-America Apartment Communities is more favorable than Clipper Realty.

Risk and Volatility

Clipper Realty has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mid-America Apartment Communities has a beta of 0.73, indicating that its stock price is 27% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Clipper Realty and Mid-America Apartment Communities’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Clipper Realty	-8.36%	N/A	-1.03%
Mid-America Apartment Communities	18.17%	6.99%	3.37%

Dividends

Clipper Realty pays an annual dividend of $0.38 per share and has a dividend yield of 11.4%. Mid-America Apartment Communities pays an annual dividend of $6.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.7%. Clipper Realty pays out -40.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Mid-America Apartment Communities pays out 178.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Mid-America Apartment Communities has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years. Clipper Realty is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Mid-America Apartment Communities beats Clipper Realty on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Clipper Realty

Clipper Realty Inc. (NYSE: CLPR) is a self-administered and self-managed real estate company that acquires, owns, manages, operates, and repositions multifamily residential and commercial properties in the New York metropolitan area, with a portfolio in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

About Mid-America Apartment Communities

Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc. is a real estate investment trust, which engages in the operation, acquisition, and development of apartment communities. It operates through the Same Store and Non-Same Store segments. The Same Store Communities segment represents those apartment communities that have been owned and stabilized for at least 12 months as of the first day of the calendar year. The Non-Same Store segment includes recent acquisitions, communities in development or lease-up. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Germantown, TN.