Real News from RealNex

By Jeffrey D. Fisher, Ph.D.

The National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (www.NCREIF.org) tracks the performance of over 10,000 investment-grade, income-producing properties with a market value of $897 billion. The properties are held in funds that are managed by investment management firms on behalf of their investors.  The market value breakdown by property type is about 28% office, 27% apartment, 15% retail, 30% industrial and less than 1% hotel properties.  The NPI includes property data covering over 100 CBSAs. The quarterly total return for the NPI was 5.33%% for the first quarter of 2022 and the rolling annual return for the past four quarters was 21.86% which is the highest since the first quarter of 1980 and the second highest in the 44-year history of the NPI.

We have heard a lot in recent years about so-called “big data.”  Having spent my career doing research and creating products using data, I was intrigued to learn more about how big data might be used for commercial real estate.

Sam Zell (pictured left) recently stated: “The real estate cycle is nearing its end” (Pensions & Investments, May 1, 2017).  We must admit that Sam had great timing when he sold his Equity Office REIT to Blackstone in 2007 which was the peak of the last cycle.