What would investors like? A pretty steady and accurate heads-up of when to invest in one thing or another. That can exist in real estate, according to the REIT newsletter from Advisor-Access.com.

The article points to an extensive 2021 study that tracked 22 years of retirement assets valued at $32 trillion. Both REITs and private real estate had about the same amounts of volatility, 18.9% and 17.9% respectively. But the two are frequently out of sync. Often when one is up, the other is down.

The reason is a lag in response to markets. Public markets like REITs can see repricing on a regular basis. Investors take stock of general financial conditions — like rising financing rates, for example — and react in real time. Private markets, though, depend on price discovery through transactions. This mechanism can take longer to outwardly register changes.