Comparing St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) & Medalist Diversified REIT (NASDAQ:MDRR)

Medalist Diversified REIT (NASDAQ:MDRR) and St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Medalist Diversified REIT and St. Joe, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medalist Diversified REIT	0	1	0	0	2.00
St. Joe	0	0	1	0	3.00

Volatility and Risk

Medalist Diversified REIT has a beta of 0.57, indicating that its stock price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, St. Joe has a beta of 1.29, indicating that its stock price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Medalist Diversified REIT and St. Joe’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Medalist Diversified REIT	80.24%	-15.18%	-6.46%
St. Joe	22.45%	15.90%	8.09%

Dividends

Medalist Diversified REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.27 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. St. Joe pays an annual dividend of $0.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Medalist Diversified REIT pays out 7.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. St. Joe pays out 29.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Medalist Diversified REIT has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years and St. Joe has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Medalist Diversified REIT is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Medalist Diversified REIT and St. Joe”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medalist Diversified REIT	$10.40 million	1.91	-$2.39 million	$3.83	3.19
St. Joe	$513.20 million	7.33	$115.63 million	$2.14	30.87

St. Joe has higher revenue and earnings than Medalist Diversified REIT. Medalist Diversified REIT is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than St. Joe, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

17.4% of Medalist Diversified REIT shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.7% of St. Joe shares are owned by institutional investors. 77.6% of Medalist Diversified REIT shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of St. Joe shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

St. Joe beats Medalist Diversified REIT on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Medalist Diversified REIT

Medalist Diversified REIT Inc. is a Virginia-based real estate investment trust that specializes in acquiring, owning and managing commercial real estate in the Southeast region of the U.S. The Company's strategy is to focus on commercial real estate which is expected to provide an attractive balance of risk and returns. Medalist utilizes a rigorous, consistent and replicable process for sourcing and conducting due diligence of acquisitions.

About St. Joe

The St. Joe Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate development, asset management, and operating company in Northwest Florida. It operates through three segments: Residential, Hospitality, and Commercial. The Residential segment engages in the development of communities into homesites for sale to homebuilders and on a limited basis to retail customers. This segment primarily sells developed homesites, completed homes, parcels of entitled or undeveloped land or homesites, and a homesite residual on homebuilder, as well as offers title insurance and marketing services. The Hospitality segment owns and operates a private membership club, golf courses, beach clubs, retail outlets, marinas, and other entertainment assets. This segment also engages in the hotel, food and beverage, and gulf-front vacation rental operations, as well as provides management services. The Commercial segment engages in leasing of commercial property, multi-family, a senior living community, and other assets. This segment is also involved in the planning, development, entitlement, management, and sale of commercial and rural land holdings for retail, office, hotel, senior living, multi-family, self-storage, and industrial uses; and grows and sells pulpwood, sawtimber, and other forest products. The company was incorporated in 1936 and is based in Panama City Beach, Florida.