Best REITs in India: Embassy, Mindspace, Brookfield

India's listed REIT shelf now runs five trusts deep — enough to compare properly, small enough to know each by name. This post compares them on the numbers that pay you: distribution per unit, trailing yield, what each portfolio actually owns, and the occupancy and leasing facts each trust reports. All distribution figures are the trusts' own disclosures as verified in our REITs guide on November 2, 2026; yields are trailing arithmetic on those payouts, not forecasts — REIT unit prices move with rates and leasing cycles, and the yield you buy is the one at your entry price.

The framework — the 90% payout rule, the 80% completed-assets requirement, the leverage cap — is in the REITs guide; the taxation is in our REIT taxation post. This page is the shelf itself.

The shelf, trust by trust

Sources: each trust's own distribution-history pages — embassyofficeparks.com, mindspacereit.com, brookfieldindiareit.in, nexusselecttrust.com — accessed 2 November 2026, as verified in our REITs guide. Knowledge Realty's figure is per ICICI Direct's tracker of its first four quarters.

The trailing yields, and what they rest on

Yield is distribution divided by the unit price you pay — so every number below carries its price date:

• Embassy Office Parks: FY26 distributions of ₹25.28 plus a record Q2 FY27 payout of ₹7.07 (declared October 28, 2026) against units around ₹411-420 in late October — trailing yield roughly 6.2%. The largest office REIT, Bengaluru-weighted, with the longest distribution record on the shelf.
• Mindspace Business Parks: quarterly payouts of ₹5.79-6.64 against units near ₹487 — trailing yield around 5.1-5.2%. K Raheja-backed IT parks, a conservative payout history.
• Brookfield India REIT: Q1 FY27 distribution of ₹5.60, trailing DPU of ₹21.75 against a ₹314.70 close on October 30 — trailing yield near 6.9%, the highest on the shelf, against a portfolio concentrated in NCR and Mumbai campuses.
• Nexus Select Trust: FY26 distribution of ₹9.081 against units in the ₹160-170 range — trailing yield roughly 5.5-6%. The retail play: 19 shopping malls, the only consumption-linked portfolio on the shelf rather than an office one.
• Knowledge Realty Trust: listed August 18, 2025 at ₹100, ₹6.44 distributed across four quarters, units near ₹109-110 — annualised yield near 6% on the newest, largest-by-GLA office entrant (Source: ICICI Direct tracker, October 31, 2026).

Source note: yields are computed on official DPUs and exchange-tracked prices as on late October-early November 2026 (screener and tracker data cited in our REITs guide). They are trailing figures — the distribution you would receive if the last four quarters repeated, which they never exactly do. Leasing cycles, interest rates and portfolio moves move both the numerator and the denominator.

How to compare them: the five checks per quarter

1. Occupancy and leasing. The office trusts report occupancy percentages and leasing volumes every quarter — a falling occupancy rate explains a future payout pressure before it arrives. Nexus reports mall occupancy and tenant sales, a different health metric.
2. The distribution notice's component split. Each payout divides into interest, rental, dividend and repayment components with different tax treatment (our REIT taxation post works the mechanics) — and the repayment slice tells you the payout is partly your own capital returning.
3. Net operating income and the leverage line. SEBI caps REIT leverage at 49% of assets; the trusts sit at different points, and a rising leverage line with flat income is the early warning on the shelf.
4. WALE — the weighted average lease expiry. Longer WALE means contractual income for more years; shortening WALE means re-leasing risk at market rates. Office trusts disclose it per portfolio; it is the single best leading indicator of payout durability.
5. The price you pay. The trailing yield is DPU ÷ price — the same trust at ₹380 versus ₹420 is a different yield investment. Entry price, not brand, sets your yield.

The portfolio question: office, retail, or both

The shelf splits by asset class, and the split matters more than the brand names. Embassy, Mindspace, Brookfield and Knowledge Realty are office trusts — their income rides IT-sector leasing, hybrid-work occupancy trends and GCC expansion; their cycles move together. Nexus Select is the retail diversifier — mall rentals track consumption, footfalls and tenant sales, a different macro driver than office leasing. A two-REIT holding (one office, one Nexus) diversifies the real-estate income driver in a way that two office REITs cannot — the same logic our mutual funds guide applies to overlapping funds. Brookfield and Knowledge Realty add geographic spread (NCR, Mumbai) and fresh-portfolio economics respectively.

The 2026 tape, honestly

The shelf's trailing yields look generous partly because unit prices spent 2026 falling with rate and sentiment pressure — the same dynamic that lifted the government bond to ~7.3%. Industry AUM data and the trusts' own unit prices both show the correction, and the honest investor reads it two ways at once: the trailing yield you can buy today is higher than what early-2026 buyers locked, and the price risk that produced the discount is the same risk that will mark the units down further if rates or office leasing wobble again. Buy REITs for the distribution stream sized against that price reality — not for a NAV that only rises. The InvIT shelf (power transmission, roads, pipelines) sits alongside with wider yield bands and heavier infrastructure cycles; our REITs guide covers it.

How to buy, and how little it takes

Any demat account buys REIT units like shares — single-unit lots, exchange-priced, T+2 settlement. A ₹10,000 first position is possible; a monthly purchase habit works exactly like the SIP discipline our SIP guide teaches, with the distribution notices arriving quarterly as the reward. The trusts also disclose their own investor pages — distribution histories, WALE, occupancy, valuation reports — which are the five-check feed above. There is no lock-in, no exit fee beyond brokerage, and no minimum holding period: the wrapper's liquidity is its structural gift, and the only reason to leave a REIT you like is its price.

What goes wrong when comparing REITs

• Chasing the highest trailing yield. Brookfield's 6.9% leads the shelf — and trailing yield is backward-looking: the price fell for a reason, or a one-off distribution inflated the DPU. Read the quarterly notice before annualising.
• Ignoring the component split. A ₹7.07 distribution is not ₹7.07 of income — the repayment-of-capital slice returns your own money, and the tax split changes the net figure per the taxation post.
• Treating the five trusts as five different bets. Four of five are office REITs with correlated cycles — the diversification comes from Nexus's retail, not from holding Embassy and Mindspace and Brookfield.
• Forgetting the price risk. A 6.2% yield with a 15% unit-price fall is a negative total-return year — REIT units are equity claims on property, and 2026's rate-sensitive tape showed it. Our REITs guide's yield-versus-G-sec comparison (the shelf yields only a modest spread over the ~7.3% 10-year government bond) is the honest frame.
• Skipping the quarterly notices. Occupancy, WALE, leverage and the component split all move — the trust's own distribution announcement is the four-minute read that keeps you ahead of the payout curve.

The verdict

The listed shelf in November 2026 offers two honest ways in. The income-first route: Embassy's record payouts and 6.2% trailing yield, or Brookfield's shelf-leading 6.9% with its concentration caveats. The diversification route: one office trust plus Nexus Select's consumption-linked malls, so the real-estate income does not ride one macro driver. Both routes start from the same discipline: official distribution notices, trailing yields labelled as trailing, and the quarterly five checks above. The REITs guide covers the framework and the InvIT shelf, the taxation post carries the component mechanics, and the passive income guide places REIT income among the streams that actually pay. And when in doubt between two office trusts, the quarterly notice with the better WALE and the steadier occupancy is the one earning its keep — the shelf is young enough that a few years of consistent disclosures will settle the brand hierarchy for a decade. A first position of a single unit on each driver — one office trust, one Nexus — is a perfectly sized start. The distribution notices do the reporting; the comparison does the rest. A first position of a single unit on each driver — one office trust, one Nexus — is a perfectly sized start.

This is educational content, not investment advice. Consult a SEBI-registered adviser for decisions specific to your situation.