Real Estate Portfolio Management Practices of Pension Funds and Insurance Companies in the Netherlands: A Survey

Abstract

Pension funds and insurance companies in the Netherlands allocate, on average, over 15% to equity real estate. This suggests that they hold different beliefs and/or apply different decision rules than their U.S. counterparts, who typically have allocated only about 4% of their wealth to real estate. A personal survey was conducted to test whether the findings of similar (mail) surveys on U.S. real estate portfolio management practices also hold for Dutch institutions. Unlike the Americans, for example, the Dutch are found to not systematically adjust for risk and to invest in real estate because of its inflation-hedging capacities.