The Dynamics of Capital Flows and Property Returns: A Disaggregated Analysis of Metropolitan Areas and Property Types

This paper examines the shortand long-run dynamics among institutional capital flows and returns in private real estate markets. The main tool of analysis we employ is a vector autoregressive (VAR) regression model in which both institutional capital flows and returns are specified as endogenous variables in a two equation simultaneous system and in which we also control for various financial and economic variables. When aggregating across U.S. CBSAs and property types, we find evidence that both lagged NCREIF returns and lagged NCREIF flows significantly influence current returns. However, these aggregate results mask significant crosssectional variation across different metropolitan areas and property types. In particular, we provide evidence that our aggregate results are driven by a limited number of large CBSAs. We find no evidence that returns are predictive of future NPI capital flows. We also document that institutional capital are not generally predictive of relative future capital flows.