More pearls from Ken Rosen and the other big brains who addressed UC Berkeley’s Annual Real Estate and Economics Symposium on Monday:
• What to Invest In Now: Rosen and several other commentators say that REITS (publicly traded companies that invest in investment-grade real estate) are cheap relative to their underlying assets. Some are trading at around 50% of the replacement value of the assets they hold and are paying a dividend of around 10%. The best sector of the real estate market right now is the apartment rental market. (Makes sense, since a lot less people can afford to buy homes.) So look for REITS that own big apartment complexes in decent market areas (see below). Do your homework: be sure that they have good management teams and don’t have too much short-term debt because refinancing anything is going to be tough for a while. Hedge your bets. (Easier said than done for us mortals down here on planet earth.) Rosen has parked his cash in short term Treasuries. Obviously he’s worried. We should probably be too. ...