Comparing Public and Private Real Estate Through Repeat-Sales Indexes and Unlevered REIT Returns

This paper constructs repeat-sales indexes using Real Capital Analytics (RCA) transaction data from central business districts (CBD) in Chicago, New York City (Manhattan), Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston. The indexes can be used to measure the historical returns of offices in these markets. This paper brings insight on whether public and private real estate should be treated as the same asset class. It was found that exposure to private real estate has a positive liquidity premium compared to public REITs. This was found by comparing RCA’s Manhattan Office Repeat-Sales Index to SL Green’s unlevered returns.