(MONEY Magazine) – Who says you can't get performance and safety in this dizzy stock market? Take a look at real estate investment trusts, or REITs, which buy, manage and develop property. In the best of times-- for example, the past five years--they behaved in line with the market, having returned an annual 17.4% since 1992, vs. 20.7% for Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. And in the worst of times--say, July 1996, when stocks slid 4.4%--REITs actually inched up 0.8%.

Two things make REITs particularly appealing right now: a hefty dividend yield that currently averages 6.1%, compared with the S&P's skinny 1.7%, and fat times in most types of commercial real estate. Office buildings, apartments and hotels are enjoying strong demand for space and rising rents. Funds from operations (FFO), the cash-flow measure that is the chief yardstick of REIT performance, are growing con- sistently at a 10% annual average. To find the most attractive REITs to buy now, we canvassed more than a dozen analysts. Here are their top picks, all traded on the New York Stock Exchange. They are described in order of their projected returns.

--Prentiss Properties Trust (ticker symbol: PP; recently traded at $26.50; 6.1% yield). One of the country's largest developers and owners of offices and industrial properties, $110 million Prentiss owns 124 properties nationwide, from Maryland to California. "The scale of their operations is almost unrivaled," says Prudential Securities analyst Louis Taylor. That scale has helped the Dallas outfit land blue-chip tenants with big needs for space. IBM, for example, accounted for 17% of the REIT's rental income last year.

Moreover, Prentiss' national reach helps the company find attractively priced acquisition and development candidates, says Lehman Bros. analyst Steven Hash. He notes that Prentiss acquired $360 million worth of properties in the past year, with attractive 10%-plus annual returns. In addition, as current leases for office space expire, Hash expects that Prentiss will be able to boost its levies 20%. That's why he estimates that FFO will increase 10% annually over the next three years, helping to boost the stock to $31 in 12 months, for a 23% total return.

--FelCor Suite Hotels (FCH; $38.50; 5.1%). As travelers to major U.S. cities have discovered, there's not a lot of room at the inn. That's good for FelCor, a $175 million lodging REIT that owns 70 hotels across the nation. Right now the Dallas company is enjoying 78% occupancy rates in all of its hostelries. Its Embassy Suites chain attracts business and leisure travelers alike with two-room suites costing about $115 a night and boasting such homelike touches as living rooms and microwave ovens.

The secret of FelCor's success, says Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst Steven Bloom, is acquiring poorly managed or run-down hotels, upgrading them and installing a capable team to operate them. Alex. Brown & Sons analyst Sam Hillers thinks FelCor's acquisitions and upgrades can fuel FFO growth of 12% annually in the next three years. As a result, he expects the stock to trade in line with other top-quality lodging REITs at 12 times FFO a share, or $45, for a 22% total return in 12 months.

--Equity Residential Properties Trust (EQR; $51.50; 4.8%). Sometimes, bigger actually is better. That's how analysts feel about this $685 million apartment REIT--the nation's largest publicly held owner of multifamily residences, with interests in 350 properties in 32 states. According to Alex. Brown's Catherine Creswell, the Chicago company has two advantages over smaller competitors: First, it can use its heft to get volume discounts on raw materials such as carpets and paint. Second, the company's policy of limiting its dependence on any one metro area to 5% to 7% of net operating income "has made them virtually impervious to fluctuations in local economies," she says.

Being big helps EQR stay big: In July, it acquired 17 properties in 13 states from Ameritech Pension Trust for $292 million. "Because of its position as the only national apartment property trust, eqr could easily integrate such a big portfolio into its operations," says Montgomery Securities analyst Christopher Hartung. Creswell thinks FFO will grow 16% in 1997, and she expects EQR's stock to trade at 14.3 times FFO a share within a year. That would result in a stock price of $57 and a 15% return.