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...

MSCI began systematically estimating the size of professionally managed real estate investment markets in 2004. These estimates are fundamental to the creation of the IPD Global Annual Property Index and a range of other multinational indexes and benchmarks, and they provide insights into the coverage of MSCI’s direct property indexes. This paper sets out the 2015 market size estimates and explains the main changes between 2014 and 2015. Market size rose in 2015.  The size of the...

The MSCI real estate market size report 2017 is now live. Discover the 2017 market size estimates and understand the main changes between 2016 and 2017 now. MSCI began systematically estimating the size of professionally managed real estate investment markets in 2004. These estimates are fundamental to the creation of the IPD Global Annual Property Index and a range of other multinational indexes and benchmarks, and they provide insights into the coverage of MSCI’s direct property...