MoneyShow Top Picks 2026: Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. (ARE)

Investors rarely get a chance to buy a dominant franchise at a price that assumes the business is headed for long-term trouble. That is exactly the situation with Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc (ARE) moving into 2026, writes Tim Melvin, editor of The Flagship Report.

The market has lumped Alexandria together with generic office REITs, even though its assets are not ordinary office towers. These are mission-critical life science campuses anchored by the best credit tenants in biotechnology, research, pharmaceuticals, and elite universities. The replacement cost of these properties is soaring while the demand for true lab-capable space continues to grow.

(This write up came from our MoneyShow 2026 Top Picks Report. To get a FREE copy of the entire report, click here.)

When we worked through the fundamentals, the numbers pointed to a company that has already endured its valley and is positioned for a powerful recovery cycle. Leasing spreads have stabilized and occupancy has proven far more resilient than the “office contagion” narrative would suggest.

Meanwhile, development yields remain attractive because Alexandria continues to build in the highest-barrier-to-entry markets in the country. And the balance sheet has been deliberately strengthened through selective asset sales, laddered debt maturities, and an extended runway of fixed-rate obligations.

I used credit models to answer the question that every aggressive investor must ask about a leveraged real estate company: what is the probability that equity is impaired under stressed conditions? The models showed that Alexandria’s implied distance-to-default remains solidly in the healthy zone. Even under conservative assumptions and wider credit spreads, the probability of distress was low.

The equity behaves like a temporarily out-of-favor call option on a trophy-asset landlord whose underlying collateral value continues to rise. For an aggressive investor, that is exactly the structure you want. The recent dividend cut should reinforce the already-strong balance sheet further.

The story for 2026 is about normalization and re-rating. Capital markets are healing. Life science R&D funding is improving. Venture flows are slowly reviving. Tenants are re-activating leasing decisions that were deferred during the past two years of macro uncertainty.

At the same time, its campuses sit at the center of the innovation economy, a long-duration secular trend that remains firmly intact. The gap between Alexandria’s share price and the intrinsic value of its real estate is wide enough to offer aggressive investors a compelling opportunity.

I believe 2026 will mark the beginning of that gap closing. Even after the recent dividend cut, we will get paid to wait for the recovery to take hold as the shares recently yielded more than 5%.