Real Estate Series Research Articles

The Dynamics of Long Memory in Return and Volatility for International Real Estate Markets

This study presents an investigation as to whether persistence in international real estate market return and volatility takes the form of long memory using a battery of five econometric tests on total-hedged and public real estate series. For the return series, we find little evidence of long memory, while the empirical results support the hypothesis of long memory for some Asia-Pacific real estate markets. Our additional empirical evidence suggest overall the long memory effect in volatility appears to be real and is less likely to be caused by shifts in variance for some Asia-Pacific real estate markets. Hence these national real estate markets are segmented based on a fractionally integrated structure that is able to provide diversification benefits in international investing.

Constraining optimal portfolios and the effect on real estate’s allocation

This paper re‐examines the role of real estate within mixed asset portfolios from the perspective of an Irish portfolio manager. The nature of the investment market in the Republic of Ireland leads to the study extending the existing literature by expanding the universe of assets beyond a solely domestic setting and by imposing constraints on the optimal portfolios. Irish funds generally hold proportionately more in international equities than in the domestic market due to the small and illiquid nature of the Irish market; therefore, unconstrained tests do not adequately model the behaviour of Irish portfolio managers. The study finds that while real estate plays an important role in both the domestic and international unconstrained portfolios, it exits the optimal portfolios at relatively low return levels. Additionally, the real estate series adjusted for smoothing fails to enter any of the optimal portfolios. However, the use of 20 per cent band constraints leads to an increase in the diversification role real estate can play in a mixed asset portfolio, with the asset maintaining a presence up to more acceptable return levels.

Stationarity and Cointegration in Systems with Real Estate and Financial Assets

This study examines the properties of wealth indices for investments in several asset classes (real estate, stocks, bonds, and Treasury bills), for several types of real estate (office, retail, research and development office, and warehouse), and by region (East, Midwest, South, and West). The series representing the value of investments in real estate and financial assets are not stationary; therefore, ordinary statistical procedures cannot be applied. Since many of the properties that are included in the real estate series have outside appraisals on an annual basis, especially in the fourth quarter, the real estate series may show seasonal influences. Hence, the appropriate test for cointegration is the Johansen's test, which is formulated in such a way as to allow for deterministic seasonality by the inclusion of seasonal dummy variables. The finding of cointegration implies that there is a long-run relationship between the series in the cointegrated system. When the CPI (or a proxy for inflation) is included in the three systems, the number of common factors increase to two, implying that inflation plays an important role in creating a linkage between these time series. These findings also have implications for developing portfolios comprising financial assets and real estate. The findings also have implications for developing a model to forecast real estate prices.

The impact of economic and financial factors on UK property performance

This paper employs a vector autoregressive model to investigate the impact of macroeconomic and financial variables on a UK real estate return series. The results indicate that unexpected inflation, and the interest rate term spread have explanatory powers for the property market. However, the most significant influence on the real estate series are the lagged values of the real estate series themselves. We conclude that identifying the factors that have determined UK property returns over the past twelve years remains a difficult task.

Measuring the Significance of Diversification Gains

This article investigates whether investing in alternative investment media provides statistically significant increases in portfolio performance. Employing methodology introduced by Kandel and Stambaugh (1987) and Gibbons, Ross and Shanken (1989), we measure the statistical significance of diversification gains for portfolios containing real and financial domestic assets, as well as international debt and equity issues. The NCREIF real estate series is further examined using the Geltner (1993) adjustment to the risk measure. In the 1978-93 sample period, neither international assets nor unadjusted real estate ever result in statistically significant increases in portfolio performance. When the Geltner adjustment is made, the allocation to real estate is substantially reduced in the expanded portfolio and also fails to result in a statistically significant increase in portfolio performance. These results may help to resolve the paradox between current portfolio allocations to real estate in practice and those suggested in the literature.

The Short Term Inflation Hedging Characteristics of UK Real Estate

This study investigates the short term inflation hedging characteristics of U.K. real estate compared to other U.K. investments. It considers not only total returns but also changes in income and changes in capital values. The analyses are undertaken using annual and quarterly data. Stocks, bonds, appraisal-based real estate (including the three property types separately) and real estate stocks are considered. Real estate series, constructed from the original appraisal series to take account of autocorrelation, are also used. The methodology is based on that devised by Fama and Schwert (1977) and tests are undertaken for stationarity and for structural breaks. Hypotheses are established about the coefficients on expected and unexpected inflation in the model and these are tested. It is concluded that real estate has poorer short term hedging characteristics for total return, change in capital value and change in income than stocks but better characteristics than bonds. However, there is evidence to suggest that the relationships change under different economic environments.

Statistical properties of returns: Financial assets versus commercial real estate

This study examines the distribution of commercial real estate returns by region (east, midwest, south, and west), by property type (office, retail, R&D office, and warehouse) and in the aggregate, and compares their distributions to those of financial assets. Nominal and real returns are examined for quarterly, semiannual, and annual periods. The quarterly nominal returns on the financial assets are mostly normal with very little indication of autocorrelation. In contrast, non-normality and autocorrelation are present in most of the nominal quarterly real estate series. The non-normality is greatly reduced when semiannual or annual returns are considered or when the quarterly series are corrected for autocorrelation. The non-normality is also lower for real returns than it is for nominal returns.

Risk and return in real estate

Basic information is provided on the returns and risks from 1978 through 1985 for unleveraged equity real estate compared with stocks and bonds. Data sources include the Russell-NCREIF index, the Evaluation Associates index, and the Goldman Sachs equity real estate investment trust index. Findings reveal that the aggregate return for the publicly traded equity real estate investment trust index in nearly twice that of the other real estate series, and more than twice that of the Standard & Poor index. The equity real estate investment trust is far more volatile than the other two real estate series. Neither the Goldman Sachs nor the other two indexes exactly measure the returns or risks on equity real estate. The volatility of the equity real estate investment trust leads it to overstate the risk of this investment category, while the other two indexes are not return indexes. Estimates from this study indicate that real estate risk lies plausibly midway between that of stocks and bonds, in the 9 percent to 13 percent range.