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The purpose of this paper is to consider the operating performance of real estate investment trust initial public offerings (REIT IPOs) as a measure to find additional evidence of market timing in this sector.

A sample of REIT IPOs is analyzed to determine the relationship between IPO clustering and several measures of REIT operating performance.

The results suggest that timing the market by marginal firms in the REIT sector would be difficult, due to the transparent nature of REITs, leading to lower level of informational asymmetry between REIT managers and investors. Consistent with results found for non‐REIT firms in industry clusters, no evidence was found of a significant difference between the operating performance of REITs which are part of an IPO cluster and those that went public outside of the identified cluster periods.

This study shows that REIT market is efficient and would not allow REIT managers to time the market.

Using stringent measures of identifying REIT IPO clusters and operating performance as a measure to gauge market timing, this study differs from previous studies and provides additional and robust evidence of transparent nature of REITs that leads to reduced information asymmetry between managers and investors. This result supports the theory that REITs are more transparent and thus less likely to be over‐invested during IPO cluster periods.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of women directors on US Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) value and performance.

Archival financial and board of director data for the 1999–2019 period are collected and analyzed using panel data regression analysis.

The main findings indicate that women directors’ presence renders a modest positive effect on REIT performance but only when they reach critical mass on REIT boards; and that women directors have no effect at all on REIT value. Additional findings indicate that women directors are more common on REIT boards after the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act but less common on boards in which the REIT founder is the chief executive officer.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first research on the effect of a gender diverse board on REIT value. It is also the first paper documenting a positive relationship between board gender diversity and REIT performance. This paper fills a research gap, as it is one of the few papers focused on gender diversity within the REITs board composition literature.

This study aims to examine the performance and volatility of Turkey Real Estate Investment Trusts (Turkish REITs) as the world is adjusting to the new normal situation in every aspect of REITs' business activities.

The prices of REITs were acquired from 26 Turkish REITs in this study, but owing to autocorrelation difficulties, 14 Turkish REITs were employed in the analysis. The ten-year long-term bond of the Turkish Government was also utilized and the period of data obtained was based on availability. The performance of Turkish REITs was evaluated using Sharpe's ratio and Treynor's ratio, and the volatility was assessed using MGARCH-BEKK.

The authors found out that Turkish REITs are constantly underperforming and the REITs' returns remain highly volatile and persistent. In addition, findings showed evidence of volatility clustering and the asymmetric impact of shocks. This study further revealed the uniqueness of each of the Turkish REITs due to the lack of evidence of multicollinearity.

However, the limitation of this study is the constraint in obtaining more macro-economic variables of more than ten-years of Turkey's Government bond and the study focused mainly on Turkish REITs.

The result suggests that since Turkish REITs are not mandatory to payout 90% of taxable earnings as dividends, high performance and an appropriate risk management approach are expected. The need for timely revealing performance of T-REITs and associated uncertainty may trigger better performance as discussed in the relationship between disclosure and performance which is recently emphasized in a recent study by Koelbl (2020). With current performance and associated uncertainty in Turkish REITs, the need to protect Turkish REITs investors is highly essential. The result further educates REIT investors that diversification benefits of REITs tend to reduce in extremely risky situations.

This is the first study in the context of Turkish REITs that comprehensively integrated market capitalization of REITs and simultaneous evaluation of performance and the volatility of the Turkish REITs as the world adjusts to the new normal.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of 19 Malaysian Real Estate Investment Trusts (M-REITs) over the period 1999 to 2014, following the implementation of dividend tax reforms announced in the 2007, 2009 and 2012 budgets.

Sharpe index, Treynor index and Jensen α are utilized to compare the performance of M-REITs against a newly developed tax-adjusted value-weighted M-REITs index, equity market, property sector and three month Malaysia Treasury Bills (T-Bills). The calculation of M-REITs returns has been adjusted to take into account the dividend tax reforms which have never been considered in previous studies.

Most M-REITs outperform the tax-adjusted value-weighted REITs index, equity market, property sector and three month T-Bills. Property sector performs worst during those periods. Some of the M-REITs have a higher standard deviation than the equity market and the tax-adjusted value-weighted M-REITs index. Most M-REITs have a lower total risk than the property sector. Further analysis shows that before (after) the tax reforms, most M-REITs underperform (outperform) the other sectors. The introduction of the tax reforms benefits both REITs and investors. A significant positive Jensen α for some M-REITs indicates that fund managers are able to time the market or to select undervalued assets.

Findings of the study would enable investors to evaluate the performance of all REITs in comparison to other financial assets during the period of study for better investment decision making. A more accurate assessment on REITs performance that take into account the tax reforms, is available for investors and fund managers to decide on the investment mix to be included in their portfolio. Moreover, fund managers’ performance can be assessed whether they perform better or worse than the equity market, property sector and three month T-Bills.

This study contributes to the scant literature on dividend tax reforms and their implication toward REITs performance. It is the first study to thoroughly assess the returns of REITs by taking into account the changes on dividend tax rates announced in the 2007, 2009 and 2012 budgets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between gender and ethnic diversity in managerial positions and Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) operating performance.

The authors employ two-stage Heckman correction models on an unbalanced panel of US Equity REITs for the time period from 2000 to 2015. The second-stage model uses multiple operating performance measures regressed on a dichotomous variable that indicates if the REIT promotes diversity in middle management in addition to a vector of control variables.

The results indicate that REITs that promote diversity in middle management with profit-and-loss responsibilities have lower operating performance than comparable counterparts. That is, gender and demographic diversity is negatively related to REIT performance as measured by return on assets, return on equity and funds from operations.

The analysis indicates that while gender and ethnic diversity is socially responsible and may provide many benefits, diversity among managers and decision makers has to be carefully implemented in order to achieve positive financial results.

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating whether diversity in leading managerial positions, other than in top officer ranks and on the board of directors, have an impact on REIT operating performance.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has taken on increased stature and importance in recent years, as property investors have given an increased priority to environmental, social and corporate governance issues in their property investment decision‐making. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of CSR factors and financial factors on the performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in Australia (A‐REITs) and assess whether these three CSR factors are separately priced by A‐REIT investors in uniquely adding value to A‐REIT investment performance.

Using CSR rating factors and financial factors for the 16 A‐REITs in the ASX200, cross‐sectional multi‐factor models are employed to identify the separate pricing of these CSR factors in A‐REIT performance over 2005‐2010.

The empirical results show that the environmental, social and corporate governance dimensions of CSR are not currently separately priced by A‐REIT investors, with most of the A‐REIT performance accounted for by the financial factors. Amongst the three CSR dimensions, corporate governance is seen to be the most influential CSR factor on A‐REIT performance.

This paper empirically determines that the CSR dimensions of environment, social and corporate governance are currently less influential than the financial factors of size, book‐to‐market value, gearing and beta in influencing A‐REIT performance. Given the increased role of CSR amongst A‐REITs, corporate governance is seen to have a more influential role in A‐REIT pricing than either environmental or social factors. This finding also has practical implications for CSR practices in other REIT markets internationally.

This paper is the first published property research analysis on the separate role of CSR factors, compared to the traditional financial factors, in the performance of A‐REITs. Given the increased focus on CSR by property investors, this research enables empirically‐validated and practical property investment decisions by A‐REIT investors regarding the separate pricing of these CSR factors in A‐REIT performance.

The paper has the following objectives in mind: to examine whether or not “green” developments have any significant effect on the Real Estate Investment Trust's (REIT) operational and financial performance; to examine whether or not the effects of “green” developments on the REIT's performance is consistent across the different property types namely office, retail and residential.

The paper introduces two variables to measure “greenness” of REIT's. These variables include the percentage of square feet of certified properties and the average “greenness” score. Firm's size as measured by taking natural logarithm of total assets was also included as it serves as an indirect measurement of “greenness”. Other financial variables were added to control for the differences in firm's characteristics. This is meant to isolate the variation in performance variable that could be explained by the “green” variables. Following which, regressions (OLS) were estimated for each of the performance variables as measured by ROA, FFO/total revenue and ROE.

The general findings of this paper are: “Green” buildings do impact both the operational and financial performance of REITs. However, different measures of “greenness” of REIT's property portfolio will yield different set of results; the observed impacts of “green” buildings are mainly significant for both the K‐REIT and Capitamall Trust (CMT) whereas that for City Developments Limited (CDL) are insignificant; the observed effects vary across the different property types namely office, retail and residential as represented by K‐REIT, CMT and CDL. The paper provides evidence to show that “green” buildings are better options given the various benefits, as compared to their counterparts.

The findings of this paper should serve as a meaningful guide to look at how investments in “green” and sustainable buildings will create value for real estate investors at the REIT's level.

The paper offers insightful information for REIT's managers when they make decisions on the acquisition of “green” properties or retrofitting of the existing properties in their direct real estate portfolios. As such, this paper is meant to extend the body of literature on “green” buildings by investigating the significance of “green” buildings on REIT's performance.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and performance of Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) in Singapore and Malaysia.

The CG attributes that contribute best toward R-Index scores are tested followed by analysis of whether R-Index scores contribute toward better performance of the REITs when controlled for growth, firm size and leverage. Regression analysis using structured equation modeling (SEM) is instituted.

All attributes in the R-Index except management ownership are significantly correlated to R-Index. Regression analysis using SEM reveals that all the three measures of performance are significant. When controlled for growth and firm size, CG mechanisms reduce the impact of losses. However, highly levered firms could be risky for investors despite strong CG mechanisms.

All S-REITs and M-REIT sampled were grouped as one regardless of the country differences, which may have limited the results and findings. The R-Index used to score the CG practices for Asia is still very new.

Findings of the study will help REIT policymakers to update scorecards frequently. Loss-making REITs must emphasize on specific CG attributes to enhance their overall CG scores to gain market confidence and procure financial assistance through better disclosure.

Due to research scarcity on CG effectiveness associated with performance of Asian REITs after the global financial crisis, this study comes as a timely contribution in understanding the relationship between CG and performance of REITs.

The purpose of this paper is to study performance and market timing ability of equity real estate investment trusts (REITs).

The authors use classical regression‐based framework and their multi‐index, multifactor, and conditional extensions to jointly detect asset selectivity and market timing ability of equity REITs and their subcategories. These results are then validated by a nonparametric test.

It is found that equity REITs in aggregate have some housing market timing ability. Various equity REIT subcategories perform differently: office REITs can discover underpriced properties, while retail, industrial, and office REITs have poor timing ability. Nonparametric tests confirm that equity REITs do not have ability to predict real estate market movements.

Research in REIT performance evaluation is still limited to the asset selectivity aspect. This paper intends to fill this gap by providing empirical evidence of market timing ability of equity REITs using an array of parametric and nonparametric methods.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship between the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and their operational efficiency and performance.

The authors use S&P Global (formerly SNL Real Estate) for the study analyses and examine all publicly traded REITs based in the United States over the 2019–2020 sample period. The authors regress the measures of REIT operational efficiency and operational performance on REIT ESG scores while controlling for REIT characteristics and use an ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation model with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors. The authors also run additional regressions to examine the implications of operational efficiency on the relationship between ESG and operational performance.

The authors find that REITs that perform well on the ESG scale have higher operational efficiency. In addition, the authors find that REITs with better ESG scores are associated with better operational performance. Finally, the authors find that the positive association between ESG scores and operational performance is stronger in REITs with higher operational efficiency.

First, the adoption of ESG adds value to the REIT in terms of increased operational performance and efficiency. Second, the value addition of ESG to an REIT is driven by the better operational efficiency of some REITs over the others. Therefore, the authors’ findings suggest that REITs that currently score poorly on ESG performance would first need to focus on all the possible avenues to improve economies of scale and hence operational efficiency. This approach would help ensure that when those REITs adopt ESG initiatives, they get the most bang for their buck.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that relates operational efficiency and operational performance of REITs to their ESG scores.