US REITS by law have to distribute min 90% of income to shareholders; otherwise tax treatment would change.
I would look for REITS that have a long history with stable and strong growing dividends over a long time and that ideally did not cut their dividends even during the 2008 housing/credit crisis.
Top picks for me are "HCP" and especially "O".
"O" has the strongest multi decade dividend growth; its debt has investment quality (and because of that is not affected by current credit spread windening)
When credit spreads will reach levels of the 1992 or 2001 recession for me personally it makes sense to buy also US REITS with lower quality debt.
Candidates for that ar "OLP" and "SNH" with current yields of 7-11%. Those health care REITS are always temporary weaker in front of recessions (with rising credit spreads) because they are less able to increase rents due to their long term contracts. But when credit spreads max out they come back and investors will enjoy a combination of high dividends + high capital gains.
Yes, you could call that market timing. I call it credit cycle timing and for me that is working well.
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BAMLH0A3HYCWhen credit spreads are even higher in a few month I would also mix a bit high yield bonds into the equation. The HYLD ETF is already paying ~11% yield.
Of course it is down a lot because bond spreads of B quality and especially CCC bonds quality where exploding in the last few months.
But in the middle of the recession they will come back like they always do and then they are a great investment for some years.