Research paper: As a long-term asset class, private real estate is especially vulnerable to climate-related events, such as water stress, hurricanes and flooding. We analyzed physical risks in five real estate markets in different regions (Australia, South Africa, the U.S., the U.K. and the Netherlands).

Blog post: Real estate investors are buying and leasing assets that might be jeopardized by a climate-changed world. A new analysis can help investors identify high-risk U.K. locations.

Blog post: 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.

Blog post: 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.

Blog post: Media commentary has fixated on the shuttering of shops, while retail-focused REITs are priced at substantial discounts to the value of their assets. Have appraisers of retail real estate been excessively bullish?

Research paper: MSCI began systematically estimating the size of professionally managed real estate investment markets in 2004. These estimates are fundamental to the creation of the MSCI 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 2018 market size estimates and explains the main changes between 2017 and 2018.

Blog post: 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.

Research paper: Globally, income yields on private real estate assets remained at record lows in 2018, while technological disruption had a growing impact on retail and industrial property performance. Our annual report details the consequences for real estate returns, at a global and national level.