Thanks James. The two chief reasons for the higher yield is that REITs generally do not have franking, and they are generally lower growth than the broader equities market, so investors are compensated for that via a higher yield. That said, the yield from a REIT is generally much safer than an equity given it is backed by in place leases.
James, from our perch the self storage sector does lend itself towards consolidation - there are scale benefits from amortising advertising, technology and quality management across a large portfolio of self storage centres.
On National Storage (NSR) is a high yielding, high growth real estate investment trust -