For the week ending May 30, net inflows into mutual funds dedicated to real estate amounted to $17.6 million, although total assets dipped by $37 million to $10.8 billion in trading. The 30-day average trading volume for the sector moved down 1.1% from the week before to 17 million shares.

Although REITs have delivered much better returns than the S&P 500 over the last 18 months, they still are cheap on a relative valuation basis, the Monitor says. On a risk-adjusted basis, they are particularly attractive because of the earnings of REITs are much more stable compared to equities. Nonetheless, the consensus for funds from operations per share growth for REITs next year is 8.9% versus 9.8% for the S&P 500.