When I said valuations I meant stocks of REIT might have had a run up due to speculation. When I said they are not exposed to the malaise, I meant they might be less leveraged than individual home owner.

Powayseller,
You are right when you said that their occupancy rates would decrease heavily if economy grinds to a halt. But I’m not so bearish on the economy.
Chris,
You gave a good insight on the local REIT performance during the last downturn.

I was looking at their performance nationally. May be performance of the MSCI REIT Index. I was wondering if anyone has researched on their financial state.

Powayseller,
I would appreciate it if you would give us a summary of the report you read.

I was looking at the Vangaurd REIT index fund. But it’s inception was in 1996. So I could’nt figure out how the fund performed during the last downturn. I could’nt get the index performance during the downturn too. All I found was that the index had an annualized return of 15.40% in the past 10yrs.

If they do not go down in value too much and have decent yield, I could have some exposure to it. An annualised 10% return is still a very good option.
Thanks in advance.