Time to buy?Mr Hall said Argo has bought shares in recent...

Time to buy?

Mr Hall said Argo has bought shares in recent capital raisings from property companies, declining to name them.

The S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT Index has jumped 60 per cent since a record low in March, pushing its combined market value to $62.3 billion. Still, it remains 66 per cent below the record set in February 2007, before the credit crisis struck.

The property index is now trading at a price-to-book ratio, which measures shares relative to assets, of 0.86 compared with the S&P/ASX 200 Index at 1.90. A number lower than one means the shares are trading at less than the value of their assets.

“I see no sector where I am more likely to double my money over the next five years than the listed property trust sector,” Southern Cross Equities director Charlie Aitken wrote in a note to clients last week. “After the ‘meltdown’ comes the ‘melt up.’”

DYOR