Analysis of Singapore and European real estate investment trusts

Since its inception in 2002, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) have been a mainstay of the Singapore Stock Exchange and have proven to be very popular among stock investors, as they offer investors an opportunity to get exposed to the real estate market without much upfront capital. Singapore’s real estate has also seen tremendous growth throughout the years as Singapore has become one of the wealthiest and most attractive cities for people to live in. In this paper, we put forward discussions in two areas: Firstly, we explore the correlation between Singapore REIT (S-REIT) prices against the prices of various real estate types. We find that Singapore REIT prices are more correlated to residential prices, even though the underlying assets comprise of industrial and/or commercial real estate. Secondly, we determine the extent to which local and global factors affect REITs in 5 European countries, and compare this statistic to the extent which they affect Singapore REITs. In both areas, we discuss the possible factors and explanations that potentially explain the trends and differences.BUSINES