View article

Using a unique hand-collected data set that comprises the 2009 balance sheets of all Italian listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), we test whether Net Asset Value (NAV) discount can be explained by expert assessor overestimations. Our results suggest that expert assessors make conservative assessments of NAV values; thus, they are not responsible for NAV discounts. Furthermore, using the balance sheet disaggregated data of each REIT, we cluster properties by region and intended use and find that certain regions and types of properties are more discount-prone than others.