MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI) announced today the launch of its Global Data and Methodology Standards for Real Estate Investment, a product that will enable investors for the first time to have consistent comparisons of the performance of real estate globally.
As a result, beginning with the release of the second quarter indexes, MSCI will report the performance of private real estate investments across measures consistent with these new standards.
This release is the culmination of more than two years of work, including consultations with MSCI’s clients and other industry participants around the world. MSCI’s development of the Global Data Standards for Real Estate Investment is in response to demand from institutional investors whose portfolios are becoming global in nature.
The Data Standards are complemented by the MSCI Global Methodology Standards for Real Estate Investment. Together, the two standards aim to provide broad measurement and reporting on risk and performance of private real estate.
The Data Standards are an enhancement to MSCI’s private commercial real estate tools and complement existing standards designed to provide a consistent and transparent measurement of the private real estate market.
Sebastien Lieblich, Managing Director, MSCI, explains:“MSCI developed the Global Data Standards for RealEstate Investment to respond to the transformation of real estate investment.”
Lieblich further explains: “The potential advantages of commercial real estate may be constrained by information inconsistencies and hampered by slow, costly, and error-prone data collection and transfer processes. The Global Data Standards aims to provide efficient and consistent data that would give property investments the same level of insight and uniformity that is evident in equities and bonds.”