NEW YORK CITY-If you're looking for high risk and hefty returns, maybe the relatively gently waters of net lease aren't for you. But given the fact that the sector is coming off a $30-billion year and stands to do $40 billion in 2013, don't sneeze at net lease.

At our recent RealShare Net Lease conference, much was made of the stable, predictable, but not through-the-roof returns the sector can provide. But Guy Ponticiello, managing director and leader of Jones Lang LaSalle's corporate finance and net lease group, says there's nothing ho-hum about a sector that performs like net lease.

“If you look at publicly traded REITs and isolate the triple net REITs,” he says, “the one-year total returns for the net-lease sector was 24%. The S&P was 12.3%.”

The $40-billion transactions prediction came from JLL research, and Ponticiello says you can expect, “more triple-net deals coming from sale/leaseback market, and more build-to-suits. You'll see them in the form of “forward takeout investments or completion of those deals that will be long term net-lease transactions.”

He's seeing a pick-up in activity as well from retailers “looking to increase their footprint,” although it's not across all concepts. Convenience stores are particularly hungry for net-lease tenancy.

Build-to-suit activity is also steaming along, with “regional and North American headquarters deal, returning to fashion. Why? “With equity tied up in their real estate holdings, corporates across the country are shifting to a sale-leaseback model,” the report states. “The market is in prime condition to receive the supply of new product with construction deliveries at the lowest level in more than three decades.”

But a lot of that activity will materialize in the second half. Investors, he noted, “are searching for core product are having a tough time placing their capital in the first half of 2013. We expect a rise in sale-leaseback volumes to increase in the back-half of 2013.”

Of course, the other topic at the RealShare Conference was the low supply. “There's just not enough quality net lease product to satisfy investor demand at the moment,” said Ponticiello in the statement prior to our interview. “The time is right for savvy corporates to take advantage of the lack of supply and generate substantial profits through sale-leaseback transactions.”

As the market returns to whatever normal means these days, does Ponticiello see a migration from the stable returns of net lease to the returns possible if investors slip out a little further on the risk scale? “You're going to see some movement of capital toward riskier, higher returns,” he responds. “But it won't harm the net lease asset class.”