Property Investors See Fiber-Optic Cables as ‘Railroads of the Future’

Business closures and stay-at-home orders have hit the real-estate sector hard. But an obscure corner of the industry is benefiting from people staying at home. Fiber-optic cables are drawing a growing interest from investors. These cables, which transmit data through light and are a crucial component of high-speed internet, aren’t technically real estate. But they are often owned by property investment firms and leased out to users under long-term deals, much like office or retail space. The Internal Revenue Service treats income from leasing out cables as property income, which has allowed publicly traded real-estate investments trusts to build up sizeable portfolios.