Real Estate

Are illiquid assets competitive as investments with liquid financial assets over the long run? In his March 2016 paper entitled “The Long-Term Returns to Durable Assets”, Christophe Spaenjers summarizes long-term returns for three types of illiquid assets since the start of the 20th century:

1. Houses and farmland.
2. Collectibles (art, stamps, wine and violins).
3. Gold, silver and diamonds.

He focuses on capital gains but comments on ancillary costs and potential associated income where relevant. Using available monthly price indexes for these assets from a variety of sources during 1900 through 2014, he finds that: Keep Reading

Which is worse with respect to sustaining retirement income: sacrificing potential investment portfolio growth early, or exposing mortgage debt to interest rates later? In his November 2015 paper entitled “Incorporating Home Equity into a Retirement Income Strategy”, Wade Pfau simulates different strategies for incorporating home equity into a retirement plan (both income assurance and legacy) via a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (reverse mortgage). A reverse mortgage is a non-recourse loan that enables many U.S. homeowners to tap (untaxed) up to $625,000 of home value. The different strategies are:

1. Ignore Home Equity: A baseline not comparable to the other strategies.
2. Home Equity as Last Resort: Delay opening a reverse mortgage line of credit until the investment portfolio is exhausted.
3. Use Home Equity First: Open a reverse mortgage line of credit at the start of retirement and draw upon it first, letting the investment portfolio grow.
4. Sacks and Sacks Coordination Strategy: Open a reverse mortgage line of credit at the start of retirement. Draw upon it (until exhausted, with no repayments) only after years when the investment portfolio loses money.
5. Texas Tech Coordination Strategy: Open a reverse mortgage line of credit at the start of retirement. Draws upon it (until exhausted) when investment portfolio balance falls below an estimated 80% of a required wealth glidepath. Pay it down when investment portfolio balance rises above an estimated 80% of required wealth glidepath.
6. Use Home Equity Last: Open a reverse mortgage line of credit at the start of retirement. Use it only after the investment portfolio is exhausted.
7. Use Tenure Payment: At the start of retirement, implement a reverse mortgage tenure payment (life annuity) option, with the balance of annual spending drawn from the investment portfolio.

For each strategy, he runs 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations of a 40-year retirement based on historical annual distributions of 10-year bond yield, equity premium, home appreciation, short-term interest rate and inflation rate. Annual withdrawals and investment portfolio rebalancings (to 50% stocks and 50% bonds) occur at the start of each year. Assuming initial home value $500,000, initial tax-deferred investment portfolio value $1 million, annual withdrawal 4% of initial investment portfolio value ($40,000, subsequently adjusted for inflation) and marginal tax rate 25% for investment portfolio withdrawals, he finds that: Keep Reading

Is producing real estate (farmland, timberland, energy delivery infrastructure and commercial properties) a good investment? In his May 2013 paper entitled “The Performance of Direct Investments in Real Assets: Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Commercial Real Estate”, Martijn Cremers investigates the performance of direct investments in natural resources (farmland and timberland), energy infrastructure Master Limited Partnerships (MLP) and commercial real estate. He considers return, risk‐return trade‐off, downside risk, diversification benefits relative to U.S. stocks and U.S. Treasury bonds, exposure to stock market shocks and inflation hedging power. Data for natural resources and commercial real estate investments are voluntarily reported by members (mostly pension funds) of a U.S. trade association. These data include property management fees. Data for energy infrastructure investments are based on the Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index, reflecting the performance of 25 publicly traded MLPs. Using quarterly and annual investment performance data during 1978 through 2012 for real estate and monthly data during 1996 through 2012 for energy infrastructure, he finds that: Keep Reading

A subscriber suggested testing the diversification power of SPDR Barclays International Real Estate (RWX) as a distinct asset class. To check, we add RWX to the following mix of asset class proxies (the same used in “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy”):

PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM)
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
iShares Russell 1000 Index (IWB)
iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
SPDR Dow Jones REIT (RWR)
iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
3-month Treasury bills (Cash)

First, per the findings of “Asset Class Diversification Effectiveness Factors”, we measure the average monthly return for RWX and the average pairwise correlation of RWX monthly returns with the monthly returns of the above assets. Then, we compare cumulative returns and basic monthly return statistics for equally weighted (EW), monthly rebalanced portfolios with and without RWX. We ignore rebalancing frictions, which would be about the same for the alternative portfolios. Using adjusted monthly returns for RWX and the above nine asset class proxies from April 2007 (first return available for RWX) through April 2013 (73 monthly returns), we find that: Keep Reading

Are returns on real estate usefully predictable? In the June 2012 version of their book chapter entitled “Forecasting Real Estate Prices”, Eric Ghysels, Alberto Plazzi, Walter Torous and Rossen Valkanov examine the evidence of predictability in U.S. residential and commercial real estate markets. They review methodologies used in constructing widely used real estate price indexes. They then survey the key empirical findings from academic studies of short-run momentum and long-run reversals in real estate returns. Finally, they test the ability of different variables (past stock market return, stock market dividend yield, 3-month Treasury bill (T-bill) yield relative to its 12-month moving average, inflation rate, term spread between 5-year and 3-month maturities, combination of forward interest rates and industrial production growth) to predict real estate returns as calculated from several price indexes and a real estate investment trust (REIT) index. Using monthly and quarterly index levels for the real estate market proxies and values for the predictive variables as available, focusing on 1991 through 2010, they find that: Keep Reading

Kathleen Peddicord, publisher of the Live and Invest Overseas group, opens her 2013 book, How to Buy Real Estate Overseas, by stating: “The idea of diversifying your investments, your assets, your life and your future overseas can seem frightening, intimidating, even paralyzing. Could you really do it? Yes, you could. I say that based on 30 years of experience at this.” The book takes the perspective of a U.S. citizen seeking to diversify assets via direct ownership of non-U.S. real estate. Using examples based on her experience investing in real estate in 20 countries and operating businesses in seven, she concludes that: Keep Reading

How should investors view illiquid assets? In the January 2013 draft of his book chapter titled “Illiquid Asset Investing”, Andrew Ang summarizes the characteristics of investments in illiquid assets. Illiquid investments typically exhibit infrequent trading, small trades (in terms of number of units) and low turnover. Examples are hedge funds (to some degree), real estate and aesthetic investments such as art and jewels. He does not address the largest illiquid component of an individual’s wealth, human capital. Based on available research, he concludes that: Keep Reading

Which asset class best hedges inflation? In the September 2012 draft of his book chapter entitled “‘Real’ Assets”, Andrew Ang examines the behaviors of the following assets commonly thought to hold their value during times of high inflation (“real” assets): inflation-linked bonds, commodities, real estate and U.S. Treasury bills (T-bill). He focuses on inflation as year-over-year change in the U.S. Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers and all items, but considers also inflation rates for medical care and higher education. He distinguishes inflation hedging (measured by correlation of returns and inflation) from long-run asset class performance. Using asset class proxy returns and U.S. inflation rates as available through 2011, he finds that: Keep Reading

Are valuation metrics for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) useful indicators of future returns? In his June 2012 paper entitled “Modern Portfolio Theory as Applied to REITs”, Jeffrey Kerrigan evaluates the value premium among REITs. At the end of each month, he reforms equally weighted portfolios of the fifths (quintiles) of REIT stocks with the highest and lowest book-to-market price ratios and calculates the returns of these portfolios over the next month. He estimates the REIT value premium based on the difference in performance between these two portfolios. Using monthly returns for 93 REITs as available during December 1995 through March 2012, he finds that: Keep Reading

Does timing based on simple moving averages (SMA) work for U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) indexes? If so, which moving average is best? In his March 2012 paper entitled “The Market Timing Power of Moving Averages: Evidence from US REIT Indexes”, Paskalis Glabadanidis tests the effectiveness of SMAs for timing ten value-weighted and ten similar equal-weighted U.S. REIT indexes. A monthly close above (below) its SMA signals investment in the REIT index (cash, estimated as the 30-day U.S. Treasury bill yield) the next month. He focuses on a 24-month SMA, but includes robustness tests based on 6-month, 12-month, 36-month, 48-month and 60-month SMAs. He applies baseline one-way trading frictions of 0.5% for entering and exiting a REIT index. Using monthly value-weighted and equal-weighted levels of ten U.S. REIT indexes during 1980 through 2010 (31 years), he finds that: Keep Reading