Real estate investment trusts

"There are currently around 200 publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) operating in the United States and their equity values total about $160 billion. Originating just a little over a century ago most analysts would agree that REITs have proven their eligibility as a good way for investors to diversify their portfolios. They were, in fact, created to allow institutional and individual investors to invest in real estate via a corporate entity. While they trade like stocks, their market path most often tracks in a different direction, often outperforming the stock market in tough times and declining over the term of aggressive equity bull markets." "Real Estate Investment Trusts: Structure, Performance, and Investment Opportunities analyzes and synthesizes the existing scholarly research on REITs in a way that will enable managers to improve their investment decisions and the operating performance of their REIT's portfolios. This book is designed to help investors evaluate REITs and identify those with the greatest investment potential. It also provides the investing public, real estate practitioners, regulators, and real estate and finance academics with up-to-date information on what modern scholarly research tells us about REITs. Also included is up-to-date original research on REITs based on the authors' own database, which is the most extensive database available on REITs that is free of survivorship bias. As well as offering a broad understanding of the evolution of this important industry, this book discusses the likely future prospects of this unique investment vehicle."--Jacket.