what time is it?, page-4

Most REIT's have had their property assets revalued for the last quarter and the results are in. Reporting of the valuations is underway.

Some serious downgrades in the valuations are on hand.

Worst to suffer have been the Industrial properties closely followed by the Commercial properties.The retail properties have been least affected (cash cows)

Expectations are for further downgrades in Commercial and Industrial over the next quarter.

Add to this the dilutions caused by capital raisings and you should not be surprised that the SP's are lower than you think they should be.

O/S and Opportunity buyers are now coming into the market to swoop on bargain assets.

O/S buyers may now wait it out until the $AUS drops vs $US/Euro etc to buy.The resurgence in the Resources sector will see the $AUS above 80c to the $US for some time...no good for the O/S buyers . The $AUS will stay up due to the prospect for higher interest rate movement by the Reserve Bank as their next step.

If this happens then the selling prospects for REIT's that need to sell assets to maintain their Lender covenants intact may not look good...especially ones that have not raised capital recently or succesfully refinanced for another term.

High exposure in the wrong real estate category will be the death knell to some REIT's that are just hanging on.

Expect more bad news before there is good news...the world economy is still not out of the mess caused by the US toxic
Loans fiasco.

You should go to the Valad web site and see what exposure they have to the various real estate categories and then make a judgement of their capacity to fight on or restructure.They are not the only REIT that is not out of the woods. Great portfolio ,unfortunately a lot of it brought at the wrong price at the wrong time.

The cash cows are the storage units IMO.They have a high exposure to Industrial. Their O/S investments are the problem in my opinion.

Anyway..good luck and "Caveat Emptor"

They may well be a good M&A prospect for a cashed up fund...you never know.

PS. I am involved in this type of business on a daily basis but DYOR as they say and make up your own risk profile on any stock you want to buy and then decide what to risk.