Special Performance
IP Real Estate: Global Market Intelligence for Institutional Real Estate Investment, March/April 2012
2 Pages Posted: 5 Sep 2012 Last revised: 26 Oct 2012
Date Written: March 15, 2012
Abstract
The market of German property funds that revalue their real estate assets at least once a year can be subdivided by their legal structure into listed property companies, listed REITs, open-ended public funds and open-ended Spezialfonds. Unlike most other developed real estate markets, the German market is dominated by open-ended funds and their investment performance is measured on NAV basis. The universe of the 53 open-ended public funds is heterogeneous, with only 22 of the funds open to private investors. The remaining funds are either not accessible to private investors due to the articles of incorporation of these funds or are out of reach for small-scale investors due to their high minimum investment threshold. Consequently some open-ended public funds have an institutional investment character, and are comparable to the open-ended Spezialfonds.
The focus of the analyses on Spezialfonds and public funds for institutional investors is their investment returns, their distribution and an analysis of factors that lie behind the returns. The 2010 return of the these funds was well below the long-term average for this group, but at least the downward trend of 2008 and 2009 seemed to have been broken. However, the spread of the returns is very high, both on a one- and a five-year basis. This applies to the total sample of funds as well as to regional sub-groups.
Keywords: Real Estate Funds, Germany, Total Return, Fund Volume, Institutional Investors, IPD
JEL Classification: L85, C43, R33, E44
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation