There has been a great deal of speculation recently that the real estate boom may be about to go bust, but participants in the Institutional Investor Forum sponsored by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) June 8 through 10 at New York City’s famed Waldorf-Astoria identified a number of bright spots on the horizon.
Michael Grupe, NAREIT’s senior VP for research and investor outreach, kicked off the conference by observing that no one who has invested in real estate in the last five years has lost money. He also noted that through the end of May, REITs were relatively flat –up 0.2% for the period–while the S&P 500 and other stock indexes all showed negative numbers.