REIS and INREV have unveiled new and updated industry standards for measuring investment fees and expenses. Most notable is the creation of the Real Estate Fees and Expense Ratio. REFER is intended to give investors a standardized measure of fee drag, better facilitating expense ratio comparisons across products.

Jim Strezewski, senior vice president
at LaSalle Investment Management and board member at REIS and NCREIF, had this to say about the organizations’ efforts: “We wanted to have some consistency, at least around definitions if not around the calculations, of some of these expenses and how they’re treated in different ratios that we’re reporting to investors. That way they can understand, essentially, what the load is on their fund.”

REFER will be calculated by dividing the total fund level fees and expenses for the rolling four-quarter period — including advisory or investment management fees, fund expenses, and performance-based fee