Return Properties of Equity REITs, Common Stocks, and Commercial Real Estate: A Comparison

Most previous studies of REIT-securitized real estate examine the performance of REITs versus only common stocks. In addition, previous studies have focused on the mean and standard deviation of returns, while this study also examines skewness, kurtosis, and conducts several tests of normality for the returns. The time series properties of the returns are also examined by calculating the autocorrelation function for each of the series. Finally, this study extends the results of Giliberto concerning the intertemporal relationship between REIT returns and real estate returns by examining a vector autoregressive model in which returns on pairs of assets are modeled as a linear function of lags of their own returns and lags of the returns on the other asset in the pair. Granger causality tests are also performed to determine if an asset's returns Granger cause the returns on the other asset. In a distributional and time series sense, equity REIT returns appear to be much more like those on common stocks and closed-end funds than those on unsecuritized commercial real estate. Intertemporally, REIT returns are much more strongly related to unsecuritized real estate than stocks or closed-end funds. The equity REIT index returns were found to Granger cause unsecuritized real estate returns for most of the real estate indices. Results were somewhat mixed for the individual REITs.