Essential Properties Realty Tru (EPRT) Stock Price & How to Invest

Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: EPRT), headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, is an internally managed real estate investment trust that acquires, owns, and manages primarily single-tenant properties net leased on a long-term basis. Its niche is sale-leaseback financing for middle-market companies: EPRT buys the real estate a private operator uses (a chain of car washes, quick-service restaurants, or medical clinics, for example) and leases it back under a long triple-net lease, where the tenant pays taxes, insurance, and maintenance. As of March 31, 2026, the portfolio held 2,417 freestanding properties totaling roughly 27.3 million square feet, was 99.7% leased across 662 different tenant concepts in 48 states, and carried a weighted average lease term of about 14.6 years with a weighted average rent coverage ratio near 3.5x. Roughly 92% of cash annualized base rent comes from service-oriented and experience-based tenants that management views as relatively insulated from e-commerce.

EPRT was formed in 2016, backed initially by Eldridge Industries, and completed its IPO on the NYSE in June 2018. Under CEO Peter Mavoides, it has grown quickly by focusing on smaller, granular deals where it faces less competition than large-cap peers bidding on portfolio transactions. The model emphasizes deep tenant underwriting: about 99% of the portfolio provides unit-level financial reporting, significant use of master leases, and only about 2.8% of base rent expiring through 2028. In Q1 2026, EPRT reported total revenue of roughly $158.8 million (up about 23% year-over-year) and AFFO of about $0.50 per share (up about 11% year-over-year), and it raised full-year 2026 AFFO-per-share guidance to a range of roughly $2.00 to $2.05. The investment picture is a growth-tilted income REIT: AFFO per share and the dividend have compounded faster than most net-lease peers, but the company remains sensitive to interest rates and to the credit quality of the middle-market operators it finances.

Interest-rate sensitivity is the primary structural risk: as a yield-oriented REIT, EPRT's share price moves inversely with Treasury yields, and higher rates raise its borrowing costs and can narrow the spread between acquisition cap rates and its cost of capital. Tenant credit is a distinct concern because EPRT finances middle-market and often non-investment-grade operators, so a recession or sector-specific stress (for example in restaurants, fitness, or early childhood education) could raise vacancies and rent loss despite the current 3.5x coverage. The company relies on regular equity and debt issuance to fund growth, so a prolonged period of a depressed share price or closed capital markets would slow AFFO-per-share growth. Concentration in a handful of tenant concepts and reliance on continued deal flow at attractive yields add execution risk. Its smaller scale also means a higher cost of capital than the largest peers.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Essential Properties Realty Tru's investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$600 million
• Revenue (Q1 2026, most recent quarter): ~$158.8 million (+23% YoY)
• AFFO per Share (Q1 2026): ~$0.50 (+11% YoY)
• 2026 AFFO per Share Guidance: ~$2.00 to $2.05
• Market Capitalization: ~$6.8 billion
• Forward Dividend Yield: ~4.1%

REITs are most meaningfully valued on AFFO rather than GAAP earnings, because heavy depreciation makes net income a poor proxy for cash generation. At a mid-2026 share price near $31 and the roughly $2.03 midpoint of 2026 AFFO guidance, EPRT trades at about 15x forward AFFO, a level that reflects its faster-than-peer growth but is below where the stock traded in lower-rate periods. The forward dividend of about $1.28 implies a yield near 4.1%, with a payout ratio comfortably covered by AFFO. Investors weighing the valuation typically compare EPRT's growth premium against the extra tenant-credit and capital-markets risk that comes with financing smaller, private operators.

There are three common ways to get EPRT exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic basket, so EPRT sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the basket route. Describe a thesis where EPRT fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

EPRT is a smaller, faster-growing net-lease REIT whose story is above-peer AFFO-per-share growth from sale-leaseback deals with middle-market tenants, set against the interest-rate and tenant-credit sensitivity that comes with the model.

Whether EPRT is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is EPRT a buy?, and where the stock could go from here in the EPRT stock forecast.

For income investors, whether EPRT pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does EPRT pay a dividend?