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The first Hong Kong Real Estate Investment Trust (HK‐REIT), the Link REIT, was successfully launched in late 2005. The retail tranche of its initial public offering (IPO) was 19 times oversubscribed, and the IPO is the largest of its kind in the world until now. Despite the initial phenomenon success, there have been only three others to follow and get listed. Indeed, it took Hong Kong over two years to have her first Link REIT listed after the legislation for REIT products had come into force. The development of REIT market in Hong Kong has been slow compared to its counterparts in some other Asian countries. This paper aims to explain the somewhat sluggish growth of the HK‐REIT market. Its development is compared with some emerging Asian markets as well as the more mature markets in the USA and Australia. The study is focused on the legislations that govern REITs in different jurisdictions, their different REIT market envi‐ronments and the rationale from the respective governments to introduce their REITs. It is concluded that the sluggish development of HK‐REITs is mainly due to its market environment and industry structure. There is not enough incentive for developers to dispose their assets in the form of REITs. Besides, the HK‐REIT Code was initially criticized by the industry as being too restrictive. Though subsequent amendments on the HK‐REIT Code have been made to make it more conducive to the development of REIT market, further sustainable success will however hinge on the willingness from sponsors, particularly large developers, to offer their portfolios of properties for sale through REITs.

The study investigates the co-movements amongst real estate investments trust (REITs). This study examines the co-movements between the world and individual countries' REITs and the co-movements amongst country-pair REITs. This study explores the responsiveness of the REITs markets' co-movements to the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the Russian–Ukraine conflict.

The study employs a wavelet coherency technique and relies on data from six REITs markets over the 1995–2022 period.

The evidence shows a generally high level of coherency between the global and the country's REITs. The findings further indicate higher co-movements between some country pairs and a lower co-movement for others. The results suggest that the REITs markets increased in co-movements around the 2008 GFC, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian–Ukraine conflict. These increased co-movements mostly lasted for a short period suggesting REITs markets contagion around these global events. The results generally suggest interdependence between the global and the country's REITs. Additionally, interdependence is observed for some of the country-pair REITs.

The evidence indicates that REITs markets respond to global events. Thus, the increasing co-movement amongst REITs observed in this study may expose domestic REITs to global crisis. However, this study provides opportunities for minimising the cost of capital for real estate projects. Also, REITs provide limited diversification gains around crisis times. Therefore, countries need to open the REITs markets to global investors whilst pursuing policies to ensure the resilience of the REITs markets to global events. Investors should also take note of the declining geographic diversification gains from some country-pair REITs portfolios.

The purpose of this paper is twofold in examining the international transmission of REIT returns volatility. The first purpose is to add to the literature on whether the real estate securities market and the broader equity market are integrated. The second objective of the study is to determine whether geographic risk factors can be transmitted beyond their region of influence.

The study uses the GARCH(1, 1), EGARCH, and GARCH‐M models.

The results show that there are significant international spillovers of REIT returns volatility within the Pacific region. The results also show that there are significant volatility transmissions between the Pacific and the Atlantic regions.

The results are consistent with the implication that the real estate sector and the general equity market are integrated such that geographic risk can be transmitted across national borders. The result will have major implications for international investment strategies.

To date, there has been no published study on the international transmission of REIT returns volatility. This study therefore examines whether the conditional variance of REIT returns of a country is affected by volatility transmission across markets in the same region using four Pacific markets.

There is currently no real estate investment trust (REIT) listed in China. As of date, only two REITs – GZI REIT of Hong Kong and CapitaRetail China Trust (CRCT) of Singapore – have securitised Chinese property assets. The purpose of this paper is to examine the driving forces and the obstacles surrounding China REITs, and evaluate REIT securitisation as an exit strategy for Chinese properties.

The paper analyses the performance of the two cross‐border REITs and investigates whether REITs holding Chinese assets outperform other listed REITs.

CRCT outperforms GZI REIT as well as some of the other Singapore REITs, while GZI REIT ranked second lowest in terms of price performance when compared to other Hong Kong REITs. The limited history of CRCT suggests that when a well‐structured REIT holding Chinese assets can perform very well. We also infer that performance is closely linked to portfolio composition and diversification, growth story and originator reputation.

The study shows that there is indeed a strong local demand for China REITs, and that REITs can provide an alternative source of real estate financing for Chinese developers and promote a better regulated Chinese real estate market.

The purpose of this paper is to study correlations between the national real estate investment trusts (REIT) markets in the USA and the four Asia‐Pacific countries of Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, and document the extent to which the time variation present in these correlations can be explained from a set of 11 economic and financial factors. Both US dollar and local currency returns are used.

Time‐varying correlations are estimated using a DCC‐GARCH model that allows for asymmetries in both the correlations and volatilities. The correlations are then regressed on a set of four economic and seven financial factors, and tests of statistical significance are conducted in order to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant explanatory variables. The authors estimate a fixed‐effects panel regression as well as individual regressions for each dynamic correlation.

Significant time variation is found in the four REIT correlation series. Panel regressions suggest that REIT correlations rise with increases in the interaction of national inflation rates and with higher global equity market uncertainty. It is also found that REIT correlations fall with increases in the US default risk premium and global equity market volume. Relaxing the structure imposed by the panel data model, individual regressions confirm most of the results, although there are some exceptions. It is also found that there are no substantial differences in the dynamics of the correlation coefficients when switching from the US dollar to local currency denominated returns.

Investors in real estate securities across national markets should take into account information about the credit spread, the volatility and volume of global equity markets, and inflation rates when modeling correlations. These variables may alert the investors to the possibility that, under a set of circumstances, investing in real estate across different markets may not provide the expected diversification benefits. Another implication relates to the impact of currency hedging. It appears that the impact of switching from US dollar to local currency denominated returns does not substantially change the time dynamics of the correlations, or the importance of explanatory variables.

Although considerable progress has been made in modelling time‐varying correlations between various REIT markets, to the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first papers to investigate the underlying causes of the co‐movement, especially between the US and Asia‐Pacific markets. The paper's results will help investors and risk managers make better choices by identifying those factors that have more systematic effects on the change in the REIT correlations, rather than more transient forces.

Commercial property market allows for the potential development of a similar real estate investment trust (REIT) structure in China as the commercial REITs (C-REIT) such as those offshore in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The authors examine tax codes of the present real estate investment methods in China in order to understand the interest for a new vehicle that specifically focuses on commercial real estate.

Given the progress of offshore C-REITS and Chinese government's emphasis on real estate, Chinese shareholders will benefit if onshore C-REITS are issued. Crucial to the success of C-REITS will be how the C-REIT shares will be priced with respect to Net Asset Value of underlying assets.

COVID-19 pandemic has changed government priorities, and development of C-REITS in real estate for growth may no longer be a priority policy for China.

Liquidity in real estate markets will be enhanced by C-REITS due to participation of private investors.

Onshore C-REITS would allow small and individual investors to have a stake in their home country's commercial real estate as an investment security for their own future.

This policy article also includes an interview with real estate professional in China whose opinions are embedded and added to the article.

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between market positioning and rents of retail facilities in Hong Kong.

Regression analysis is deployed in the paper to find out the impact of various attributes, in terms of a retail facility's physical characteristics, market positions, and location, on the annualized per‐area net rental income. The sample data obtained from the initial public offerings of the Link real estate investment trust (REIT), one of the largest REITs in the world, is used for analysis.

The study finds that district centers command the highest average rental levels, followed by local and estate centers. As the effects of positive externalities for unorganized shops are smaller, the average rental levels for shops are generally lower. In terms of the impact of individual attributes on rents, a retail property's age and its efficiency ratio have negative relationships with rents, while its size (in terms of gross floor area) and the amount of shops positively affect the facility's rental levels.

Although obtaining the largest possible dataset in the Link REIT portfolio for the study, the sample is not considered big enough to detect the impact of the location of a retail facility on its rental adjustments. Further studies are required with regard to this issue.

The results of this study give planners and developers of retail facilities some insights about the effects of market positioning on a retail facility's performance on the leasing market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long-run relationship and short-term linkage between the Asian REIT markets and their respective macroeconomic variables.

The data collected comprised total return REIT Index from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea and their macroeconomic variables from the date of availability of the data until December 2014. The macroeconomic variables are either available in monthly or quarterly basis, they will be separately tested with REIT Index respectively to their frequency. All the variables are tested for its stationarity prior to the investigation of their long-run relationship and short-term linkage using Johansen cointegration test and Granger causality test.

The results showed that certain of the emerging REIT markets show a higher degree of integration with macroeconomic variables in the long run. This implies that the emerging REIT markets are more sensitive towards the change in macroeconomic environment in relative to the developed REIT markets.

The paper implied that the distinction of each market structure and their unique way of policy implementation. The findings can assists policy makers to understand about the significance of policy implementation on the Asian REIT markets prior to decision making and also for the portfolio management my asset managers.

The paper is one of the few attempts at assessing the long-term relationship and short term linkage between the Asian REIT markets and the macroeconomic variables.

The purpose of this study is to test whether real estate investment trusts (REITs) are able to reap positive economies of scale with an enlarged asset base, which are translated into lower operating expenses, higher revenue, and better accessibility to capital at competitive costs. The paper aims to test economies of scale effects on expenses, revenue and equity return for REITs in Asia over a sample period from 2001 to 2007.

Three different functional models are used (translog, semi‐log quadratic and simple quadratic) to test the relations of asset size and squared asset size of REITs with expense variables.

The semi‐log quadratic models show significant positive economies of scale effects in all expenses categories except for property management fees after controlling for exogenous factors like country, year, diversification strategy and growth. The paper does not, however, find significant scale advantages in revenue, operating income and equity costs for larger Asian REITs.

This paper acknowledges the limitations associated with small sample size, and possible inconsistency in the financial reporting of expenses and revenues data in the sample countries, which may cause some biases in the results. The findings imply that REIT asset managers should focus on asset growth strategies that are able to generate scale efficiency, so as to generate positive wealth effects for shareholders.

Past empirical research on scale economies focuses on US REITs. There are limited works done on the emerging Asia REIT markets. This study helps fill the gap by establishing whether there exists significant scale efficiency in operation and performance of Asian REITs.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if artificial neural network (ANN) works better than linear regression in predicting Hong Kong real estate investment trusts’ (REITs) excess return.

Both ANN and the regression were applied in this study to forecast the Hong Kong REITs’ (HK-REITs) return using the capital asset pricing model and Fama and French’s three-factor models. Each result was further split into annual time series as a measure to investigate the consistency of the performance across time.

ANN had produced a better forecasting results than the regression based on their trading performance. However, the forecasting performance varied across individual REITs and time periods.

ANN should be considered for use when one were to attempt forecasting the HK-REITs excess returns. However, the trading performance should be always compared with buy and hold strategy prior to make any investment decisions.

This paper tested the predicting power of ANN on the HK-REITs and the consistency of its predicting power.