City Office REIT (NYSE:CIO) & Sunrise Realty Trust (NASDAQ:SUNS) Financial Analysis

City Office REIT (NYSE:CIO) and Sunrise Realty Trust (NASDAQ:SUNS) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, valuation, earnings and dividends.

Profitability

This table compares City Office REIT and Sunrise Realty Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
City Office REIT	-5.56%	-1.48%	-0.65%
Sunrise Realty Trust	N/A	N/A	N/A

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares City Office REIT and Sunrise Realty Trust”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
City Office REIT	$179.10 million	1.28	-$2.68 million	($0.42)	-13.62
Sunrise Realty Trust	$250,000.00	418.02	$230,000.00	N/A	N/A

Sunrise Realty Trust has lower revenue, but higher earnings than City Office REIT.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

67.5% of City Office REIT shares are held by institutional investors. 3.9% of City Office REIT shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

City Office REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.0%. Sunrise Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.6%. City Office REIT pays out -95.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for City Office REIT and Sunrise Realty Trust, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
City Office REIT	0	0	0	0	0.00
Sunrise Realty Trust	0	0	1	0	3.00

Sunrise Realty Trust has a consensus target price of $17.50, indicating a potential upside of 16.05%. Given Sunrise Realty Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Sunrise Realty Trust is more favorable than City Office REIT.

Summary

Sunrise Realty Trust beats City Office REIT on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About City Office REIT

City Office REIT is an internally-managed real estate company focused on acquiring, owning and operating high-quality office properties located predominantly in Sun Belt markets. City Office currently owns or has a controlling interest in 5.7 million square feet of office properties. The Company has elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

About Sunrise Realty Trust

Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. engages in commercial real estate (CRE) lending business. It focuses on originating CRE debt investments and providing capital to borrowers and sponsors with transitional business plans collateralized by CRE assets. The company intends to create a diversified investment portfolio, targeting investments in senior mortgage loans, mezzanine loans, whole loans, B-notes, CMBS, and debt-like preferred equity securities across CRE asset classes. Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2023 and is based in West Palm Beach, Florida.