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Bryan Reid

Bryan Reid

Executive Director, MSCI Research

Bryan Reid is a member of the MSCI research team specializing in solutions for global real assets. He focuses on performance measurement, portfolio management and risk-related research for asset owners and investment managers. Prior to joining MSCI, Bryan started his career with the Reserve Bank of Australia and worked in the structured-finance team at Moody’s Investors Service. An economist by training, he holds a bachelor’s degree in economics (with first-class honors) from the University of New South Wales.

Research and Insights

Articles by Bryan Reid

    What Listed Markets Might Be Signaling for Private Real Estate

    2 mins read Quick Take | Jan 19, 2024 | Bryan Reid

    Investors in private real estate might be wondering when the downturn in the market will bottom out. Could the improvement in public-market performance signal that the private market will turn the corner soon? 

    2024 Trends to Watch in Real Assets

    8 mins read Blog | Dec 13, 2023 | Will Robson, Alexis Maltin, Jim Costello, David Green-Morgan, Tom Leahy, Benjamin Martin-Henry, Bryan Reid

    After the market dislocation of 2023, investors will be hoping for a calmer 2024 in commercial real estate. We identify five key influences to help investors navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.  

    The Climbing Costs to Insure US Commercial Real Estate

    3 mins read Blog | Nov 29, 2023 | Bryan Reid

    Insurance costs as a share of income have doubled in the last five years, adding another challenge for property investors. We examine the trend and the variation across U.S. states.

    Style Factors for Private Real Estate–Beyond Property Type and Location

    Research Report | Oct 24, 2023 | Bryan Reid, Fritz Louw, Will Robson

    For many real-estate investors, property-type and geography segmentations are the primary lens through which they measure and manage their portfolios. But could real-estate style factors play a role in helping investors manage their portfolios more systematically? 

    Unearthing Real Estate Trends in Commodity Cities

    4 mins read Blog | Sep 12, 2023 | Bryan Reid

    Cities that ride booms and busts in commodity prices have in the past achieved strong outperformance in commercial-property returns during booms. Has the recent surge in commodity prices had a similar impact on returns? 

    Banking on Commercial Real Estate

    2 mins read Quick Take | Aug 3, 2023 | Bryan Reid

    Concerns about U.S. banks’ exposure to a slumping commercial-property market have put pressure on bank stocks. We analyze a sample of banks to discern differences in lending patterns by property type and location. 

    Real Estate Factors’ Performance: The Financial Crisis vs. Now

    7 mins read Blog | Mar 10, 2023 | Bryan Reid, Niel Harmse

    As U.K. real estate experiences a pricing correction at record pace, it’s natural to make comparisons to the 2008 global financial crisis. We draw on factors in private real estate to better understand current conditions and give us clues to what may happen next.

    Rent-Growth Expectations Shaped Returns for US Industrial Real Estate

    5 mins read Blog | Sep 27, 2022 | Bryan Reid

    Investment in industrial real estate has benefited in recent years from the growth of online shopping, a trend that was turbocharged during the pandemic. But are expectations for the sector still grounded in reality?   

    Commercial Property in Hurricane Ian’s Path

    2 mins read Quick Take | Sep 27, 2022 | Jim Costello, Bryan Reid, Haley Crimmins, Gillian Mollod

    Commercial real estate with an estimated value of USD 1.5 trillion stands in the projected path of Hurricane Ian, which is forecast to make landfall in Florida this week.  

    Real Estate Pricing Could Mask Climate-Change Risk

    2 mins read Quick Take | Sep 23, 2022 | Bryan Reid

    Real estate investors are increasingly aware of the risks posed by climate change, but may not realize how much the potential risks vary, even for a relatively homogeneous asset group. We examine the MSCI Climate Value-at-Risk scores of one property type. 

    How US Real Estate Purchases Changed During the Pandemic

    2 mins read Quick Take | Aug 10, 2022 | Bryan Reid

    One notable consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic was a shift in real estate investors’ preferences. We compared broad-market purchase activity in 2019 to that in 2020-2021. Where did various types of investors shift in terms of sectors and geographical regions? 

    Real Estate Has Bucked the Deglobalization Trend

    6 mins read Blog | May 27, 2022 | Bryan Reid, Oleg Ruban

    Real estate investors have historically exhibited a strong home bias. But there is evidence that real estate may have become more global based on return and transaction behavior — bucking the trend, evident in listed markets, toward deglobalization.

    Five Misconceptions About Climate-Change Risk in Real Estate

    7 mins read Blog | Feb 25, 2022 | Bryan Reid, Jascha Lehmann

    Real estate portfolios may be particularly vulnerable to the threat of climate-change risks. While investors are increasing their focus on the topic and considerable progress has been made in recent years, some misconceptions remain.

    Did Market Liquidity Impact Real Estate Returns?

    4 mins read Blog | Dec 16, 2021 | Bryan Reid

    Real estate is an illiquid asset class. But liquidity can also vary considerably between different assets, markets and time periods. Have differences in liquidity within real estate had an impact on investment returns?

    Could Factors Help Explain Asset-Level Real Estate Performance?

    5 mins read Blog | Oct 19, 2021 | Bryan Reid, Fritz Louw

    For real estate investors, property type and geography segmentations are the primary lens through which they measure and manage their portfolios. Testing five potential real estate style factors, however, were we able to better explain asset-level variation.

    Open- vs. Closed-End Real Estate Funds: How the Choice Mattered

    8 mins read Blog | Mar 30, 2021 | Luis O’Shea, Bryan Reid, Bert Teuben

    The aggregate performance of closed- and open-end real estate funds in the U.S. was strikingly similar in recent years, despite large differences in their strategy and roles in portfolios. But did some investors gain an edge through fund selection?

    Missed Rents’ Impact on Real Estate

    7 mins read Blog | Sep 11, 2020 | Bryan Reid, Niel Harmse

    Some commercial tenants have stopped paying rent amid COVID-19. Without rental income, property funds are not able to pay distributions to shareholders and borrowers cannot service their debt. We analyzed property-fund data to assess the impact on investors.

    Measuring Climate Risk in Real Estate Portfolios

    6 mins read Blog | Jul 8, 2020 | Bryan Reid

    By evaluating real estate portfolios in terms of different physical risks as well as under different transition-risk scenarios, investors may be able to build a more complete picture of their exposure.

    Real Estate Asset Selection Mattered — Especially in a Crisis

    Blog | May 14, 2020 | Bryan Reid

    As real estate strategies become more complex and market disruption continues, attribution analysis may prove a valuable tool. We looked at asset selection’s role in driving portfolios’ relative returns during relatively calm and disruptive periods.

    How COVID-19 could impact private real estate values

    Blog | Apr 20, 2020 | Bryan Reid, Yang Liu

    Real estate has not historically been immune to growth shocks, but the impact of COVID-19 has been harder to establish than it has for public equities. Discounted-cash-flow scenarios may help investors understand the potential sensitivity of their portfolios.

    What’s driven capital growth in real estate portfolios?

    Blog | Feb 6, 2020 | Bryan Reid

    In real estate investing, capital growth has historically been responsible for most of the observed volatility in total returns. Could breaking capital growth into its components help tell a more detailed story of property portfolios’ performance?

    Exploring the ‘what ifs?’ in real estate

    Blog | Oct 29, 2019 | Bryan Reid

    The opacity of real estate markets and the wide spectrum of potential outcomes makes it hard to understand performance. Running a historical “what if” analysis may help institutional investors understand how different choices could have impacted outcomes.

    What’s the downside in real estate?

    Blog | Oct 4, 2019 | Bryan Reid

    Real estate has always been marked by periods of expansion and sometimes painful corrections. But all cycles are not alike.

    Real estate may be yielding less than you thought

    Blog | Sep 12, 2019 | Bryan Reid

    Income has long been an important part of real estate returns meaning yields are often heavily scrutinized by investors. However, headline yields do not factor in capital expenditure requirements which can vary significantly. Investors looking to better understand potential “free cash flow” positions of portfolios post-capex may want to adjust the yields they use to account for it.

    The changing face of real estate portfolios

    Blog | Aug 14, 2019 | Bryan Reid

    Office and retail investments’ historic dominance of commercial real estate portfolios is decreasing, with other property types — including logistics centers, student housing, and data centers — increasing. This evolution highlights how technology and the search for yield have led investors to diversify and seek exposure to other property types.

    Asian retail resilience: Have store hours affected performance?

    Blog | Jul 9, 2019 | Bryan Reid

    Industrial real estate has outperformed retail assets in recent years, but the trend has been less pronounced in Asia, where store hours, among other reasons, might have led to more resilient retail performance.

    Measuring real estate capital growth isn’t rocket science, is it?

    Blog | Jan 28, 2019 | Bryan Reid

    In September 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter was lost, at a reported cost of USD 125 million, due to a mix-up in measurements.

    Benchmarking in Real Estate: Beyond Performance Measurement

    Research Report | Nov 27, 2018 | Will Robson, Bryan Reid

    Investors allocate to private real estate for a myriad of reasons, which means their investment objectives can vary substantially.   As such, investors articulate their objectives in various ways such as market-based benchmarks, inflation related targets or perhaps absolute return targets.  However, an objective is not a strategy; Investors must make this translation from objective to strategy, through to execution.  Market-based benchmarking and associated analytics form...

    Global Real Estate: To Hedge, or Not to Hedge

    Blog | Sep 12, 2018 | Will Robson, Bryan Reid

    While not quite as profound as the Shakespearean original, it is still quite a tricky one for real estate investors to grapple with. Until fairly recently, it is one that has been avoided by the majority of real estate investors due to their heavy home bias. But the increasing global nature of the asset class, combined with rising currency volatility, means the question is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid.

    Global Real Estate Performance in 2017

    Research Report | May 29, 2018 | Bryan Reid

    In this Research Insight, we present the results of MSCI’s IPD® Global Annual Property Index 2017, identifying current asset-level real estate performance trends globally and by national market.  The analysis focuses particularly on the latest performance year, 2017.  Global -level real estate delivered a total return of 7.9% in 2017, up from 7.4% in 2016 and marking the eighth consecutive year of positive performance since the global financial crisis. Spain was the best performing...

    For Real Estate, All Rate Rises are Not Created Equal

    Blog | Apr 25, 2018 | Bryan Reid

    A decade after the global financial crisis, the era of ultra-low interest rates may be drawing to a close. Many real estate investors worry that rising rates could hurt their portfolios. However, our analysis suggests it’s the macroeconomic fundamentals driving interest rates, not the rise itself, that are most important.

    Retail Apocalypse: Should Mall Owners be Worried?

    Research Report | Feb 7, 2018 | Bryan Reid, Amit Nihalani

    Retailer bankruptcies, department store struggles and empty malls have dominated recent U.S. retail news headlines. The apparent culprit? A mass movement to online shopping. The “retail apocalypse” has led to fears of consumers abandoning physical bricks-and-mortar stores in favor of online shopping. In this paper, we use MSCI data to illustrate that, despite the inexorable rise of e-commerce over the last 20 years, retail asset performance in the U.S. has been surprisingly resilient,...

    Building Targeted Real Estate Portfolios: How Many Assets to Replicate the Market?

    Research Report | Dec 7, 2017 | Bryan Reid

    Investors often target certain markets when executing their allocation strategies. However, differences between individual properties and high asset-specific risk mean that holding just one or two assets is not usually sufficient to replicate the market. This paper — which uses an example of an investor targeting specific global office markets — shows that a representative exposure could have been achieved with portfolios approaching 10 assets in size. Most of the reduction in tracking error...

    Have Big-Ticket Properties Performed Better Than Lower-Value Properties?

    Blog | Aug 15, 2017 | Bryan Reid

    It is sometimes assumed that larger real estate assets perform differently to smaller assets thanks to reduced accessibility and competition at the top end of the market. Using MSCI’s global private real estate dataset, we find evidence to support the assertion that the size of an asset does have an impact on its performance.

    2016 Global Property Performance

    Research Report | Jul 28, 2017 | Bryan Reid

    Trends and Insights from MSCI’s 2016 IPD® Global Annual Property Index. Global property held directly by private investors delivered a total return of 7.4% in 2016, marking the seventh consecutive year of positive performance since the global financial crisis (GFC). However, global momentum was negative, the return coming down from 10.7% in 2015. While still positive, global capital growth more than halved in 2016 to 2.5% from 5.4% the previous year, potentially indicating that a turning...

    Private Real Estate: Valuations and Sale Price Comparison Report 2016 results

    Research Report | Jun 30, 2017 | Bryan Reid

    For mainstream financial asset classes, investment performance measurement is based on transaction prices. In contrast, direct real estate is well known for being an illiquid and heterogeneous asset class, making the establishment of purely price-based indexes problematic. In order to overcome these obstacles, MSCI’s private real estate indexes are constructed on the basis of professionally sourced open market valuations, i.e., price estimates based on a set of market process assumptions...

    Are Low Yields a Risk for your Private Real Estate Portfolio?

    Blog | Jun 8, 2017 | Bryan Reid

    In a global environment of sluggish growth and low interest rates, yields on private real estate are under sustained pressure. Yields have been compressing since 2010 and are now lower than before 2007.

    Private Real Estate: Valuations and Sale Price Comparison Report 2015 results

    Research Report | Jul 8, 2016 | Bryan Reid

    For mainstream financial asset classes, investment performance measurement is based on transaction prices. In contrast, direct real estate is well known for being an illiquid and heterogeneous asset class, making the establishment of purely price-based indexes problematic. In order to overcome these obstacles, MSCI’s private real estate indexes are constructed on the basis of professionally sourced open market valuations, i.e., price estimates based on a set of market process assumptions...