Asia Pacific REITs have been a bit off their game so far this year. Concerns about economic slowdown in the region contributed to a weak first quarter. While the second quarter was stronger and the numbers remain positive overall, Asia Pacific public real estate markets have underperformed their global counterparts.
Through the first six months of 2014, Asia Pacific public real estate markets have appreciated 4 percent in US dollar terms, lagging behind both Europe (up 12 percent) and North America (up 17 percent), according to Jana Sehnalova, managing director for Forum Securities in Singapore. That being said, the region’s markets exhibited a huge range of results, with Australia turning in the strongest performance of the developed markets (up 16 percent) and Japan actually in negative territory overall. Singapore is up 9 percent and Hong Kong is up 5 percent, but in both markets negative residential sentiment affected the p