Commercial Real Estate Returns

In the commercial real estate market, which is perceived to be relatively inefficient, investors have comparative advantages; hence there are significant costs to diversification. This paper presents for the first time a series of market (or quasi-market) returns for a large data base. This data base is believed to be the most complete commercial real estate data base yet constructed. The paper empirically evaluates the benefits of diversification along various dimensions within the commercial real estate opportunity set. The analysis confirms certain aspects of prior work concerning inflation protection and diversification opportunities while concluding that even investment grade real estate investments are heterogeneous assets.     

A Different Look at Commercial Real Estate Returns

Commercial real estate makes up a relatively small percentage of most institutional portfolios, even though the existing literature has consistently reported attractive risk-return characteristics that would suggest much larger allocations. This discrepancy has been explained by a perceived lack of comparability between return series calculated for real estate and those calculated for other asset classes. Just as investors actively involved in the futures markets do not consider individual common stocks to be traded continuously, those active in the stock market do not consider real estate to be traded continuously. In both cases, adjustments to reported returns are necessary to achieve a degree of comparability. This study makes such adjustments, using sales data from properties that help comprise the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries / Frank Russell Company (NCREIF/FRC) Index to generate a "transaction-driven" commercial real estate return series. Examination of the risk-return characteristics of this series shows that it is quite different from traditionally reported real estate return series and far more consistent with risk-return characteristics that have been reported for other asset classes.     

Commercial Real Estate Returns: An Anatomy of Smoothing in Asset and Index Returns

In this article, we investigate the commonly used autoregressive filter method of adjusting appraisal‐based real estate returns to correct for the perceived biases induced in the appraisal process. Many articles have been written on appraisal smoothing but remarkably few have considered the relationship between smoothing at the individual property level and the amount of persistence in the aggregate appraisal‐based index. To investigate this issue we analyze a large sample of appraisal data at the individual property level from the Investment Property Databank. We find that commonly used unsmoothing estimates at the index level overstate the extent of smoothing that takes place at the individual property level. There is also strong support for an ARFIMA representation of appraisal returns at the index level and an ARMA model at the individual property level.     

Parking Externalities in Commercial Real Estate

Local governments have employed a variety of strategies to reduce street congestion through an increase in parking supply. These policies have been criticized as an implicit subsidy that shifts costs from drivers to the public at large. Others have noted that parking lots and structures can lead to increased water and air pollution. However, there has not been an examination of whether parking, presumably by reducing congestion, generates external benefits. We measure whether nearby parking availability influences commercial property prices after controlling for property characteristics, including on‐site parking. We find that publicly accessible parking, such as commercial parking garages, generates significant aggregate externalities. We also find evidence of a significant complementary relationship between building and parking area in property values. This suggests that parking regulation could have a significant impact on property development through its effect on the value of the marginal square foot of building area.     

Loss Aversion and Anchoring in Commercial Real Estate Pricing: Empirical Evidence and Price Index Implications

Loss aversion behavior plays a major role in the pricing of commercial properties, and it varies both across the type of market participants and across the cycle. We find that sophisticated and more experienced investors are at least as loss averse as their counterparts and that loss aversion operated most strongly during the cycle peak in 2007. We also document a possible anchoring effect of the asking price in influencing buyer valuation and subsequent transaction price. We demonstrate the importance of behavioral phenomena in constructing hedonic price indices, and we find that the impact of loss aversion is attenuated at the aggregate market level. This suggests that the pricing and volume cycle during 2001–2009 was little affected by loss aversion.     

Cancellation Strategies in Commercial Real Estate Leasing

In a contractionary corporate environment, lease cancellation strategy becomes an important component of corporate real estate leasing decisions. This paper presents a leasing model in which less well-informed lessors offer leases with alternative lease cancellation options. The model demonstrates that a tenant's choice of cancellation option reveals his private information with respect to the likelihood of option exercise. Tenants who select a lease with a downsizing option are more likely to exercise the option. Given the higher likelihood of option exercise, the model suggests that the downsizing option will be priced higher. We examine a sample of 311 leases, and consistent with the model's prediction, we find that on average leases with a downsizing option have significantly higher contract rent. However, termination and sublet options are not associated with higher rent. The evidence suggests that market uncertainty, private information and adverse selection affect the pricing of alternative cancellation options and the choice of cancellation option.     

Dynamic Programming Model of Real Estate Multi-project and Multi-stage Development Decision

针对房地产开发中多项目开发的优化决策问题,通过建立有针对性的项目开发方案评估体系,在完成对各项目的开发方案评估的基础上,将多项目的优化决策转换为多阶段优化决策,以所有项目的总效益达到最优为目标,创新性地运用动态规划的方法来求解最优的多项目开发策略.实证研究表明:文章所建立的决策方法和动态规划模型是有效的,并且能够针对项目外部及内部变化做出相应调整,体现了该动态规划模型的适用性.     

Estimating Returns on Commercial Real Estate: A New Methodology Using Latent-Variable Models

Despite their widespreao use as benchmarks of U.S. commercial real estate returns, indexes produced by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) are subject to measurement problems that severely impair their ability to capture the true risk–return characteristics–especially volatility–of privately held commercial real estate. We utilize latent-variable statistical methods to estimate an alternative index of privately held (unsecuritized) commercial real estate returns. Latent-variable methods have been extensively applied in the behavioral sciences and, more recently, in finance and economics. Unlike factor analysis or other unconditional statistical approaches, latent variable models allow us to extract interpretable common information about unobserved private real estate returns using the information contained in various competing measures of returns that are measured with error. We find that our latent-variable real estate return series is approximately twice as volatile as the aggregate NCREIF total return index, but less than half as volatile as the NAREIT equity index. Overall, our results strongly support the use of latent-variable statistical models in the construction of return series for commercial real estate.     

The Risk and Return of Commercial Real Estate: A Property Level Analysis

I compare the performance of the index‐based time series approach and the cross‐sectional approach in estimating factor loadings of nontraded assets, and show that the latter likely provides less biased and more efficient estimates. I then use the cross‐sectional approach to estimate the loadings of privately owned commercial real estate on the Fama and French (1993) factors, the Pastor and Stambaugh (2003) liquidity factor, and two bond market factors, using a sample of 14,115 properties in the 1977–2012 period. I find statistically significant loadings, of which the signs seem consistent across property types, but the magnitude varies. Using the time series approach on the same data, I find insignificant loadings on virtually all factors. To investigate the sources of the weak results from the time series approach, I conduct a Monte Carlo simulation in which both approaches are correctly specified and indices can be estimated perfectly. Simulation results suggest that the cross‐sectional approach provides more accurate estimates under reasonable market conditions.     

REIT and Commercial Real Estate Returns: A Postmortem of the Financial Crisis

In the years surrounding the financial crisis, the share prices of equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) were much more volatile than the underlying commercial real estate prices. To better understand this phenomenon we examine the cross‐sectional dispersion of REIT returns during this time period with a particular focus on the influence of their capital structures. By looking at both the debt ratio and the maturity structure of the debt, we separate the pure leverage effect from the effect of financial distress. Consistent with leverage and financial distress costs amplifying the price decline, we find that the share prices of REITs with higher debt‐to‐asset ratios and shorter maturity debt fell more during the 2007 to early‐2009 crisis period. Although REIT prices rebounded with the bounce back in commercial real estate prices, financial distress costs had a permanent effect on REIT values. In particular, we find that REITs with more debt due during the crisis period tended to sell more property and issue more equity in 2009, when prices were depressed.     

A Real Options Model of Real Estate Development with Entitlement Risk

Most development projects encounter a highly uncertain entitlement process that is largely uncontrollable by developers. In this study, entitlement is modeled as a separate stage within a compound real option, where developers begin with minimal control (maximum risk) and each successful stage increases control (decreases risk). We solve the model analytically, provide three‐dimensional numerical comparisons, and empirically test the model's predictions using hand collected rezoning petitions. Our main result refines the classic development option model: developers first invest early (secure entitlements) in order to obtain the option to subsequently delay investment (construct the optimal building at the optimal time).     

The Walkability Premium in Commercial Real Estate Investments

This article examines the effects of walkability on property values and investment returns. Walkability is the degree to which an area within walking distance of a property encourages walking for recreational or functional purposes. We use data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries and Walk Score to examine the effects of walkability on the market value and investment returns of more than 4,200 office, apartment, retail and industrial properties from 2001 to 2008 in the United States. We found that, all else being equal, the benefits of greater walkability were capitalized into higher office, retail and apartment values. We found no effect on industrial properties. On a 100‐point scale, a 10‐point increase in walkability increased values by 1–9%, depending on property type. We also found that walkability was associated with lower cap rates and higher incomes, suggesting it has been favored in both the capital asset and building space markets. Walkability had no significant effect on historical total investment returns. All walkable property types have the potential to generate returns as good as or better than less walkable properties, as long as they are priced correctly. Developers should be willing to develop more walkable properties as long as any additional cost for more walkable locations and related development expenses do not exhaust the walkability premium.     

Current Issues in the Analysis of Commercial Real Estate

This paper identifies and discusses a number of current issues regarding our understanding of commercial real estate markets. These issues include: 1) accurate estimation of the quantity and location of our nation's commercial space; 2) an understanding of the linkage between the space and capital markets for commercial real estate; 3) identification of the macroeconomic factors that affect the rate of return on commercial property and whether local market factors also affect the rate of return; 4) problems associated with measuring the return characteristics of equity investments in commercial property (including measures of the diversification benefits and inflation-hedging abilities of this asset class); 5) a better understanding of rental markets, including good measures of changes in effective rents over time; and 6) examination of the rationale for ownership of commercial space by corporate users. This paper reviews recent research related to these questions and suggests future research that should prove to be fruitful.     

100 Years of Commercial Real Estate Prices in Manhattan

This article is able to put together a database of 86 repeat-sales transactions for office properties in lower and midtown Manhattan spanning the years from 1899 to 1999. Using this very limited database, decade-interval changes in real property prices are estimated—with varying degrees of precision. Our conclusions are two fold. First, adjusting for inflation, commercial office property values were 30% lower in 1999 than they were in 1899. Second, within any decade values often rise and fall by 20–50% in real terms. With these results, the long-term historic return to New York commercial property must mostly comprise yield with capital gains limited to general inflation. Other historical studies consistent with this conclusion are reviewed.     

商业银行房地产项目放贷初始决策研究

信贷业务是商业银行利润的主要来源,也是银行管理和决策中最复杂、最困难的金融业务之一,具备一个良好贷款资产结构和拥有大量较强盈利能力贷款资产是商业银行核心竞争力的重要体现之一.文章从银行视角出发,对房地产项目的放贷问题进行投资分析,由于该决策具有刚性,故传统投资分析方法足够对其评价;对某房地产新项目实例进行计算分析,采用以资本资产定价模型为基础的适用新模型确定折现率,取得了较好的效果,具有一定的现实应用意义.     

The Role of Uncertainty in Investment: An Examination of Competing Investment Models Using Commercial Real Estate Data

Neoclassical investment decision criteria suggest that only the systematic component of total risk affects the rate of investment, as channeled through the built-asset price. Alternatively, option-based investment models suggest a direct role for total uncertainty in investment decisionmaking. To sort out uncertainty's role in investment, we specify and empirically estimate a structural model of asset-market equilibrium. Commercial real estate time-series data with two distinct measures of asset price and uncertainty are used to assess the competing investment models. Empirical results generally favor predictions of the option-based model and hence suggest that irreversibility and delay are important considerations to investors. Our findings also have implications for macroeconomic policy and for forecasts of cyclical investment activity.     

Risk and the Performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts: A Multiple Index Approach

This paper analyzes the returns of a sample of Real Estate Investment Trusts and examines their risk-adjusted performance using both single index (i.e., CAPM) and multiple index (i.e., APT) models. It is shown that while the performance rankings of the investment trusts are not very sensitive to the risk-adjustment model, the actual performance measures do sometimes differ substantially. Unfortunately, because of the high volatility of these real estate investments, the differences in investment performance across trusts generally are not statistically significant.     

The Timeline Estimation of Bubbles: The Case of Real Estate

We develop and then apply a new recursive regression methodology with a two‐direction searching process for initialization. The methodology improves the reliability of existing models when estimating a bubble's timeline. We apply our proposed methodology to estimate bubbles in U.S. home prices as well as in simulated scenarios. Our results confirm the improvement in reliability of the proposed methodology in obtaining consistent estimators with varying samples. Moreover, we verify the presence of bubbles in the U.S. aggregate data and seven of the eight cities in our study prior to the subprime crisis and find evidence of the bubble's reemergence since October 2013.     

商业地产投资的实物期权特性及应用框架研究

商业地产开发投资中存在投资的不可逆性、外部环境的不确定性和决策的灵活性,因而具有实物期权特性。从确定要解决的问题、分析不确定性的来源、鉴别关键的不确定性因素、识别实物期权类型、构建期权定价模型、计算项目价值、检查计算结果和重新设计8个方面,构建了商业地产投资决策的实物期权分析框架。     

A Simple Search and Bargaining Model of Real Estate Markets

This paper examines the impact of brokers on buyers' and sellers' search behavior and on the transaction prices in real estate markets. It is shown that the seller and the buyer search less intensively if the house is listed with a broker. The seller gets a higher price when he employs a broker, but the increase in price is smaller than the commission fee. More specifically, the portion of the commission covered by the increase in price is directly related to the bargaining powers of the buyer and the seller. In the special case where the price is determined according to the Nash bargaining solution, the increase in price is shown to be half of the commission fee. It is also shown that an increase in the commission rate increases the equilibrium price but decreases the equilibrium search intensities.