Are Listed Real Estate Stocks Managed as Part of the Real Estate Allocation?

Until now, however, there has been little work published regarding done the behavioural or institutional aspects of incorporating listed real estate into an investment strategy. To rectify this gap we have undertaken two pieces of research for EPRA. The first, published in March 2013 (The use of listed real estate securities in asset management), examined both the different strategies and the various fund types available to investors who are prepared to use listed real estate, citing a number of examples, and how listed real estate is or may be combined with other types of real estate and real assets. These other assets include internal and external unlisted funds (the product of the investor or a third party asset manager), derivatives, property debt, direct property, and real assets such as infrastructure and commodities in their various forms.This second piece of work is a logical extension of the first paper, and concentrates on survey evidence examining whether or not listed real estate is managed as part of the overall institutional real estate allocation. Our starting point is as follows. If there is a strong rational case for including more listed real estate in multi-asset or real estate portfolios, and if there is little evidence that this is happening, then there may be an explanation which is to do with the organizational structures or investment processes employed by investors or sub-contracting asset managers. Hence, while we might recognize the apparent benefits of listed real estate noted above, it is important to understand and capture the organizational processes that determine whether European investors do include listed real estate in their real estate portfolios -- and, if not, we would like to know why not. To the extent to which investors do utilize listed real estate, we would like to understand what (if anything) limits the weight they place on listed real estate