Share prices for U.S. equity real estate investment trusts finished mostly flat for the week ended March 8, buoyed by the performance of large-cap names, while broader market indexes ended the week down about 2%.

By property sector, the SNL U.S. REIT Multifamily index recorded the largest increase in share prices, up 1.07%. The self-storage and office indexes followed, up 0.76% and 0.57%, respectively. On the other hand, the hotel and retail indexes logged share-price declines for the past week, at 1.92% and 0.50%, respectively.

The best-performing REITs were office landlord Empire State Realty Trust Inc., up 4.14%, and healthcare-focused CareTrust REIT Inc., up 3.99%.

Communications REIT Uniti Group Inc. saw the largest drop in share price among the group. On March 4, Uniti Group started the process of seeking an amendment and limited waiver under its credit agreement. As a result of the amendment, Uniti Group expects to slash its dividend. Fitch Ratings downgraded Uniti Group's credit ratings and placed the company's issuer default rating and security ratings on Rating Watch Negative.

Share prices for cannabis-oriented Innovative Industrial Properties Inc. dropped 11.29% during the week. Innovative Industrial was the top-performing REIT stock in each of the previous two weeks.

Washington Real Estate Investment Trust was the most-actively traded REIT stock for the week, with an average daily volume equal to 5.9% of the REIT's common shares outstanding. S&P Dow Jones Indices recently added the diversified REIT to the S&P SmallCap 600 index. Washington REIT's share price ended the week up 3.38%.