CHICAGO—Even as the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries reported a slight decline in third-quarter returns on the 7,165 income-producing properties in its NCREIF Property Index, the council also noted a slight uptick in core fund performance. The NCREIF Fund Index—Open‐end Diversified Core Equity (NFI-ODCE)'s quarterly returns gross of fees edged up to 1.87% in Q3 from 1.70% in Q2, although the index was down from the 2.0% seen in the year-ago period. The index covers 23 funds totaling $220.9 billion of gross real estate assets and $181.4 billion of net real estate assets; the oldest fund in the index was launched in 1970.

The income return on NFI-ODCE has been essentially flat over the past year and was 1.07% in Q3, NCREIF said Monday afternoon. Year to date, quarterly appreciation has averaged 0.70%, with Q3 seeing appreciation of 0.79%, down from the 1.02% quarterly average in 2016 and 2.38% in 2015. The appreciation return consists of real estate and debt valuation; Q3's debt valuation component was 0.33%, up from 0.30% last quarter and negative 0.14% a year ago.

For the trailing year, the annual NFI-ODCE total return gross of fees was 7.66%, down from 10.08% for the year ending Sept. 30, 2016 and below the annualized since inception return of 8.72%. However, it compares favorably to the trailing 12-month return for the NPI at 6.89%.