Why Does REPE Underperform?

https://www.cambridgeassociates.com/benchmark/rea…

Real estate private equity has put up an annual return of 7.39% over the last 25 years vs. 10.95% for the NAREIT Equity Index. This is troubling because real estate private equity has put up subpar returns with a much higher risk profile.

Opportunistic and value add investment strategies typically have: -More leverage -Greater development and execution risk -Greater refinancing risk -Greater reinvestment risk -Greater market risk -Poor liquidity

How is it that the buy and hold core/core plus investment strategy utilized by most equity REITs has outperformed for so long with such modest leverage?

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EDIT: Just read footnote on page you're referencing which basically disclaims that they are comparing apples to oranges.

Haven't dug into data, but a few points that could explain this: (1) REITs don't generally go to zero. (Relatively) conservative leverage profiles and public market liquidity have ensured that few REITs have had their equity go to zero, whereas a number of large real estate funds had their equity wiped during the financial crisis. (2) Kind of related to number 1, but property values have generally risen over the last 25 years. As long as you were conservatively capitalized and didn't get wiped out as some point, you generally made money. (3) Timing. Not sure what 1992 looked like (as I was still eating glue at the time), but 9/30/17 had some very high REIT valuations. Also, not sure what the size of the REIT universe was in 1992 as the industry really came into its own through the 90s. Prior to current cycle, height of REPE fundraising was in lead-up to recession (heavy skew towards low/negative returns).

 

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