Attendees were given industry "best practices" by Blake Eagle, CEO of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries; Roderick Petrey, president of the Collins Center for Public Policy; and Philip Blumberg, CEO of American Ventures, among other real estate investment leaders.

The speakers stated that REIT share values could be as volatile as equities, and therefore offer lower diversification than direct or indirect ownership through private real estate investment funds.

Thomas Jeffrey, American Ventures' CFO, discussed investment fund practices, including the division of real estate acquisitions teams from asset management teams. "By separating the acquisition team from the asset management team, you create groups with competing goals," he said. "For an acquisition team, the only mistakes are the deals that don't close, while asset managers are left to manage an asset for which they added no input."