Asset-level risk and return in real estate investments∗ Jacob S. Sagiy This version: Feb. 28, 2015 Abstract Relatively little is known in the academic literature about the idiosyncratic returns of individual real estate investments, though quite a few commercial properties command prices commensu- rate with the market values of small to medium publicly traded companies. I use purchase and sale data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) to compute holding period price-appreciation returns for commercial properties. In stark contrast with liquid asset returns, idiosyncratic drift and volatility estimates diverge as the holding period shrinks. This puzzling phenomenon survives a variety of controls for vintage effects, systematic risk heterogeneity, and sample selection biases. I derive an equilibrium search-based illiquid asset pricing model which, when calibrated, fits the data very well. Thus a structural model of illiquidity seems crucial to a descriptive theory of real estate investment returns. The model can be extended to other illiquid asset classes and used to price derivatives such as debt claims. Keywords: Commercial real estate, illiquid assets, holding period returns, search, idiosyncratic risk. ∗I am grateful to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) for providing me with the data, and especially to Jeff Fisher and Jeff Havsy for helping me understand it. I also benefited from discussions with Lynn Fisher, Dave Hartzell, and Andra Ghent. All errors are attributable to me. yKenan-Flagler Business School, UNC Chapel Hill. Email:
[email protected] 1 Introduction Research on real estate investments primarily focuses on aggregated or portfolio-level attributes.