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Abstract Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) renew and recycle their property portfolios through divestment of inefficient assets and new acquisitions. Most previous literature focuses on the wealth effect of acquisition on REIT-level performance, while the property-level renewal process of REIT portfolios (especially divestments) remains unclear. Using a unique property-level dataset of Japanese REITs, we fill this gap by investigating the determinants of property divestment and the management strategy leading up to the divestments. We find that REITs strategically choose properties designated for divestment. The criteria include: (i) economic obsolescence that is captured through relatively large operating expense and/or a high rental yield within the REIT portfolio, (ii) mismatch in the geographical focus of the REIT, and (iii) a significant change in the capital value since acquisition. Especially during the periods of REIT growth, most of the above criteria apply, suggesting that the long-run renewal of a portfolio leads to its efficient asset allocation. We also provide evidence of property-level earnings management by REITs: the size of the capital expenditure is reduced just before the divestment to increase the net cash flows to appeal to potential buyers.

REITs hold relatively little cash and access capital markets often due to their favorable dividend tax status. The transparent nature of REITs, in theory, implies low information asymmetry. However, we present evidence that this phenomenon is temporal. We find that information asymmetry is relatively low when REITs access the capital markets, when compared to non-accessing periods, based on bid-ask spreads for a large number of REITs. Further, we find that REIT size and turnover affect bid-ask spreads, but the pattern of lower bid-ask spreads surrounding capital market access does manifest itself when we investigate subsamples, dependent on size and turnover. Our findings are consistent with the idea that REITs increase their disclosure when they access the capital markets, which in turn lowers information asymmetry.

This paper empirically examines how real estate risk impacts corporate investment and financing decisions. Using a panel of United States firms from 1985 to 2013, we document that real estate risk is negatively associated with firms’ long-term investments and long-term external financing in equity and debt. The results are robust to different risk measurements and in particular salient during the financial crisis period when the endogeneity between risk and investment is less of a concern. The effect on firm leverage, however, depends on risk measures. Overall, in contrast to previously documented positive effects of the real estate value, real estate risk exposure exhibits mostly the opposite effects on investment, financing and capital structure. This difference is consistent with option value determinants. Findings in this paper shed new lights on the impact of real estate holding on corporate decisions, offer a new explanation for the underperformance of hedge funds’ real estate strategies, and confirm the theoretical predictions in Deng et al. (2015).

We analyze how REITs managers use real earnin gs management to address issues of liquidity risk and increased cost of capital they face during seasoned equity offerings. We show that REITs managers engage in real earnings management instead of accrual earnings management to attract more uninformed trading in order to provide the liquidity service at a lower cost during seasoned equity offerings. We find REITs with higher liquidity risk are more likely to manipulate earnings prior to equity offerings and uninformed trading is higher following real earnings management. Firms set the offer price at a smaller discount after engaging in real earnings management and stock returns decline in the long run. The findings are consistent with real option and liquidity risk explanations for equity offerings.

Optimism around Initial Public Offerings is well documented. However, Seasoned Equity Offerings are often surrounded by less optimism. Based on analyst forecast properties for a large number of REITs, we find that REIT analysts tend to be relatively optimistic after IPOs, whereas this tends not to be the case surrounding SEOs. Our results are more pronounced when REITs are bigger and have more analysts following them. Our results are robust for a number of multivariate specifications. Our findings suggest that possible underperformance of REITs after the IPO may be caused by over-optimistic investors.

Prior studies of REIT property transaction activity focus on shareholder wealth effects. This study examines the effects of property acquisitions, dispositions, and overall trading activity on unsecured bond spreads, credit rating changes, and rating outlooks using a sample of the listed equity REITs in the U.S. We find that active property trading in general decreases creditors’ wealth, but this negative impact is significantly mitigated for REITs with positive NAV premiums and when REITs use sale proceeds to pay down debt after the transactions. We also find that property transactions followed by an increased geographic focus significantly increase bond yield spreads and decrease the probability of credit rating upgrades.

This is the Editors’ Introduction to the special issue of the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. The issue includes six papers presented at the 2015 Maastricht-NUS-MIT (MNM) Symposium on International Real Estate Finance and Economics, held at the National University of Singapore in September 2015. This Introduction briefly describes the articles included in the special issue. The papers cover a broad range of topics.

Numerous Chinese families choose to reside together with their elderly parents due to the considerable impacts of conventional values such as filial duty in Chinese society. However, as house prices rocketed up in major Chinese cities over the past decade, this arrangement is facing a sizeable challenge, therefore also raising new research question about it. This paper attempts to investigate the phenomenon of co-residence of adult children with their elderly parents in China. Using the 2013 data of China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we document that house price is indeed a significant determinant for the pattern of intergenerational co-residence. Our empirical results can provide interesting insights into the important implication of rising house price for household residential arrangements in this country.

This paper examines whether and how individual risk-taking behavior affects real estate financing through shadow banks. Using the loan data from an online platform in China, we show that riskier households tend to employ online loans to meet the increasing down-payment in their home purchase. Individual investors are likely to fund riskier real estate loans with higher expected returns. Real estate loans experience higher ex-post default rates than other types of loans. The effect is more pronounced during the period of credit constraints.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have grown to become an important financial product in Asia, which today stands as the second largest REIT market in the world. Although existing literature has shown that externally managed REITs have underperformed their internally managed counterparts, the Asian REITs market has a strong preference for the external management model. This paper investigates the factors that drive REITs to internalize or deter them from internalizing their manager by studying the characteristics of 26 internalization subjects in Australia at their point of internalization. We compare their financial, corporate governance and portfolio characteristics to a control group. We find the MBR, the parent of the REIT manager, the asset size, and the geographic diversity of assets to be significant determinants of the probability of these REITs internalizing their manager. The low growth prospect faced by large Australian REITs that had a domestic investment focus motivates them to internalize their manager.