U.S. real-estate investment trusts (REITs) have soared this year, with the FTSE NAREIT All REIT Index producing a 20 percent return, compared with 9.1 percent for the S&P 500.
And now the strength is starting to spread to Europe. The continent "was slow to embrace REITs, but a record surge in fundraising is providing a boost to the Continent's recovering commercial-property market," The Wall Street Journal reports.
In the first eight months of the year, 10 new European REITs raised $4.2 billion, a record for the period, according to Dealogic.
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The European REIT IPO boom resembles that in the United States after the commercial real-estate collapse of the early 1990s, analysts told the Journal.
Some experts see more potential in the European REIT market than in its U.S. counterpart.
"As much as we like the U.S. economy right now, you can't buy U.S. real-estate companies for a 20 percent, 30 percent discount to their book value," Marc Halle, global head of real-estate securities for Prudential Real Estate Investors, told The Journal.
Meanwhile, MarketWatch columnist Jeff Reeves touts REITs as a superior investment over bonds. He particularly likes healthcare REITs.
"The demographic tailwind created by aging baby boomers that need more care and the rise in insurance coverage thanks to Obamacare will mean more business for medical offices, physical therapy centers and other facilities," Reeves writes.
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