MSCI’s IPD Global Annual Property Index for 2015 shows that real estate returned 10.7 percent last year, compared to 2.6 percent for equities and 1.6 percent for bonds. The 2015 return is an increase on the 9.9 percent recorded for real estate in 2014 and has the effect also of increasing the long-term average returns for global real estate to 10.2 percent for three years, 10.3 percent for five years and 5.1 percent for 10 years.

The 2015 IPD Global Annual Property Index also shows that structural asset allocation to real estate continues to increase. Between 1995 and 2015, the allocation to real estate across global markets rose from 5 percent to 24 percent. MSCI says that the shift has come at the expense of cash and bonds, with the latter falling from 49 percent to 29 percent over the same period.

MSCI says that a noticeable trend is that capital value growth is once again the larger component of total return, as prices are rising faster than income. “This trend