Time to Dip a Toe in Real Estate?
It may be hard to get excited about real estate, given that it was at the epicenter of the financial crisis. But that blowout centered, and continues to center, on residential properties and flimsy mortgages. Commercial property has held up better and is already seeing a recovery. Green Street Advisors, a real-estate-investment-research firm in Newport Beach, Calif., notes that high-end commercial-property prices are already up 25% from their lows. "This recovery is well under way," says Craig Leopold, the firm's president. With yields averaging roughly 4%, real estate investment trusts, or REITs, offer a flow of income to investors and the prospect for capital gains as the economy slowly improves. Green Street is telling its institutional clients to stick with the best quality REITs in different sectors, including Avalon Bay for apartments, Simon Property Group for upscale malls and Boston Properties for office buildings. Jim Blair of the Moneta Group uses both domestic and international REITs in his clients' portfolios. "REITs have good yields, but it's important to know whether the managements are valuing their properties accurately," he says. Blair likes the domestic and international REITs of the global real estate firm Cohen and Steers.