The outlook for the global economy is less certain than it was at the start of the year, so it'd make sense for retirees to want to go for ASX defensive shares such as real estate investment trusts (REITs). I'm going to talk about one ASX REIT that I've liked for a long time and have bought myself.
The business I'm highlighting is Rural Funds Group (ASX: RFF), a farm real estate investor that owns properties across Australia in different states and across various farming sectors.
It's invested in areas like cattle, almonds, macadamias, vineyards and cropping. Rural Funds has the flexibility to invest in additional farming sectors, if it sees opportunities elsewhere.
I'll run through some of the positives of the business.
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Pleasing and reliable distribution
Rural Funds has a record of passive income reliability. It started paying a distribution in 2014 and increased its annual payout each year to 2022. Since then, it has been paying the same distribution per unit despite the headwinds of rising interest rates.
Many other ASX REITs reduced their distribution during the last few years, but not Rural Funds.
It has guided it's going to pay the same annual distribution per unit of 11.73 cents in FY26, which translates into a distribution yield of 5.5%, better than what term deposits are currently offering.
With how things are playing out globally, I wouldn't be surprised to see the ASX REIT maintain its distribution at 11.73 cents per unit in FY27.
Good rental income growth prospects
The business has very good prospects for long-term rental profit and distribution, in my view.
For starters, it has a weighted average lease expiry (WALE) of 13.2 years. This is one of the longest in the REIT sector, if not the longest. The metric shows it has a significant level of rental income locked in for the long-term.
More than half of the portfolio's revenue is linked to CPI inflation, which means Rural Funds is a pleasing option for protection against inflation, in my view. A large minority of rental contracts have fixed annual increases (plus market reviews).
In other words, most of the portfolio is going to see rental income growth each year, which is a strong tailwind for improving the underlying value of the farm and fund long-term distribution growth.
The ASX REIT is trading at great value
Rural Funds tells investors every six months what its adjusted net asset value (NAV) is.
The NAV is essentially the underlying value of the business, including the farm values, the loans, cash balance and so on. It's 'adjusted' to include the market value of the water entitlements.
At the end of December 2025, Rural Funds had an adjusted NAV of $3.10 (which was up 0.6% over the six-month FY26 half-year period).
At the time of writing, it's trading at a discount of more than 30% to its underlying value, which looks very appealing to me.
