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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.

This is a policy paper that examines the most important issues that must be addressed in designing the institutional structure for tax‐advantaged public real estate companies in Europe. The real estate investment trust form of corporate structure was first created in the USA in 1960. In Europe, the real estate invstment trust (REIT) regime has been authorized only in The Netherlands, and very recently in Belgium. However, the establishment of REIT‐like public investment vehicles is under discussion in the UK, and in several Continental European nations. Advocates of European REITs believe that these investment vehicles would reduce costs of capital, improve liquidity in local real estate markets, and promote more efficient allocation of capital. European countries that are moving toward the establishment of REITs face a series of important decisions regarding the features of the institutional environment in which these firms will operate. This paper summarizes the most important decisions that must be made, and considers the policy implications of each. We conclude that the US model should not be adopted uncritically in Europe; instead, structural options should be considered carefully. Problems of international taxation are identified, and the possible development of a pan‐European REIT structure is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to propose advice on the design of pilot real estate investment trusts (REITs) and the future development of a REITs market in China.

This study presents a qualitative analysis on unique attributes of the Chinese market. Taking those attributes into account, it goes onto offer suggestions and ideas on how China can most successfully kick off its REITs industry.

The paper finds that REITs offer developers an alternative, less risky way to raise money. They would also provide owners with an exit strategy. REITs implementation should be a two‐stage process. Pilot REITs should be made available to institutional investors first and later to retail investors. Most importantly, current legislation and taxes do not provide an environment conducive to REITs. The paper also finds that it is presently a favorable market environment under which to launch REITs, owing to pent up demand for REITs amongst investors.

The greatest practical implications of this study are the suggestions offered in terms of what Chinese pilot and long‐term REITs should look like. Pilot REITs can be implemented using special regulations. For post‐pilot REITs, currently existing Chinese trust schemes and special asset management plans offer possible, but problematic, frameworks. Perhaps more promising is the possibility of legislation modeled after China's current securities fund law. This paper implies that new regulations and laws are needed before REITs can be launched in China, as well as gives advice as to what those laws should look like.

There are no REITs yet in China, so a trenchant quantitative study is impossible. This paper is a preliminary work to be followed by a quantitative analysis once China REITs have been operating for long enough to offer sufficient data.

This is one of the only papers examining China pilot REITs in the context of China's economic, legal, and tax environment. It takes previous studies a step further by offering specific legal, regulatory, and tax frameworks that would aid the development of China REITs.

Under the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic circumstances where the gold prices are increasing and the stocks are in free fall, this research aims to compare the returns of gold prices and Turkish real estate investment trust (T-REIT) index by covering the 2008 global financial crisis, 2018 Turkish currency crisis and 2020 COVID-19 pandemic-based economic crisis periods and examine the effects of the returns of gold and the T-REIT index on each other, a research area that has been limited in the literature.

For the empirical analysis, vector auto regression model was used, and Augmented Dickey–Fuller and Granger causality tests were also conducted. The average returns were compared with the coefficient of variation analysis.

The results of the study exhibited that except for the 2008 global financial crisis period, 2018 Turkish currency crisis and 2020 COVID-19 pandemic-based economic crisis, the T-REIT index performs better than gold prices, but it is a riskier instrument, and both investment instruments do not affect the returns of each other. The segmentation of both instruments recommends the fund managers including both tools for diversification of a portfolio.

In Turkey, gold prices are valued based on the fluctuations of the global gold prices, as well as the Turkish Lira/US Dollar currency exchange rates. The effect of the exchange rates may be considered in future studies, and the study may be conducted based on the USD values of the T-REIT index and global gold prices. Further studies may also include the comparison between the T-REIT index returns and a set of commodities such as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. This study covered only the first five months of 2020 to analyze the COVID-19 pandemic-based economic crisis initial effects, and a successor study is also recommended by including more new data of the post-COVID-19 pandemic and comparing both results.

The results of the research are expected to contribute to the REIT literature and give insight to investors about their investment choices while including both investment tools in their portfolio, especially for the future conditions of the new COVID-19 pandemic-based economic crisis.

The study may provide insight for individuals, especially those who are considering possible investment options in the Turkish real estate market in the post-COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

Gold and real estate have always been considered as important investment instruments. Gold is commonly accepted as a safe haven in the literature, and the REITs are considered as long-term investment instruments by many scholars. While gold prices increase in the windy periods, the returns of real estate investments have more cyclical movements based on mostly the macroeconomic conditions and its integration with stock markets, yet the real estate is a common long-term investment tool, especially because of the regular income it generates for the retirement years. By covering three crisis periods including the COVID-19 pandemic-based economic crisis effects, making research about two important investment tools would contribute to the literature, especially in which the studies in this area were very limited.

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.

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.

Real estate investment has been generally accepted as a value-adding proposition for a portfolio investor. Such an impression is not only shared by investment professionals and financial advisors but also appears to be supported by an overwhelming amount of research in the academic literature. The benefits of adding real estate as an asset class to a well-diversified portfolio are usually attributed to the respectable risk-return profile of real estate investment together with the relatively low correlation between its returns and the returns of other financial assets. By using the regime-switching technique on an extensive historical dataset, we attempt to look for the statistical evidence for such a claim. Unfortunately, the empirical support for the claim is neither strong nor universal. We find that any statistically significant improvement in risk-adjusted return is very much limited to the bullish environment of the real estate market. In general, the diversification benefit is not found to be statistically significant unless investors are relatively risk averse. We also document a regime-switching behavior of real estate returns similar to those found in other financial assets. There are two distinct states of the real estate market. The low-return (high-return) state is characterized by its high (low) volatility and its high (low) correlations with the stock market returns. We find this kind of dynamic risk characteristics to play a crucial role in dictating the diversification benefit from real estate investment.

Germany is the biggest real estate market in Europe. Although some established vehicles for indirect property investments are available, the German real estate market is dominated by direct investments and lags behind its international peers in capital market integration. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the recent launch of German REITs may improve this situation.

Existing indirect property investment vehicles and the new G‐REIT are analysed and compared along the dimensions of transparency, liquidity and risk/return characteristics. In addition, potential capital flows into G‐REITs are investigated and economic implications derived.

The study identifies the limitations of existing German indirect real estate investment vehicles and demonstrates the superior characteristics of the new G‐REIT. Substantial short‐term capital flows from existing vehicles to G‐REITs are, however, unlikely. Instead the temporary exit tax will foster an economically beneficial reallocation of capital by private companies and public authorities through property sales to new domestic and international investors via G‐REITs.

The results indicate that G‐REITs have the potential to attract substantial funds in the medium term and facilitate a more integrated and developed German property and capital market.

Given the evolving market integration, this study aims to explore the connectedness of 12 real estate investment trusts (REITs) during the COVID-19 period.

The connectedness of 12 REITs was examined by considering three sample periods: full period, COVID peak period and COVID recovery period by using the quantile vector autoregressive (VAR) approach.

The findings ascertain that REIT markets are sensitive to COVID, revealing significant connectedness during each sample period. The USA and The Netherlands are the major shock transmitters; thus, these countries are relatively better options for the predictive behavior of the rest of the REIT markets. In contrast, Hong Kong and Japan are the least favorable REIT markets with higher shock-receiving potential.

The study recommends implications for real estate industry agents and investors to evaluate and anticipate the direction of return connectedness at each phase of the pandemic, such that they can incorporate those global REITs less vulnerable to unplanned crises. Apart from these implications, the study is limited to the global REIT markets and only focused on the period of COVID-19, excluding the concept of other financial and health crises.

This study uses a novel approach of the quantile-based VAR to determine the connectedness among REITs. Furthermore, the present work is a pioneer study because it is targeting different time periods of the pandemic. Additionally, the outcomes of the study are valuable for investors, policymakers and portfolio managers to formulate future development strategies and consolidate REITs during the period of crisis.