Capital Allocation in Real Estate Private Equity: An Analysis of the Risk-Return Spectrum and Various Capitalization Structures

Real estate investment strategies—and all investments for that matter—typically follow a Capital Asset Pricing Model (“CAPM”) rule such as financial instruments, where the more risk you take on, the more return you are compensated with. In real estate, the “Core” or “Core-Plus” investments typically take the lowest risk-return slot, while opportunistic developments or distressed investments take the higher end of the risk-return spectrum due to their “riskier” nature. In periods of capital markets volatility and uncertain economic climates, however, the risk-return profile of these investments can become less linear and even slightly flip, offsetting risk-adjusted returns so much to the point where an investment with less risk has a higher risk-adjusted return (or in some cases a higher nominal return) than one with more risk – signifying a dislocation in real estate investing that shrewd capital allocators can exploit. The following analyses takes a widely encapsulated view into current economic events in the real estate / financial industry that would cause this investment strategy dislocation, coupled with a multi-faceted, empirical analyses on actual real estate investments to effectively illustrate how lower risk strategies can offer higher risk-adjusted returns than their higher risk / higher return counterparts.