Do the Managers of Global Real Estate Mutual Funds Have Skills?

We examine the performance of active, global real estate mutual funds (GREMFs), both at sector and individual fund levels. We apply a bootstrap procedure to separate genuine skills from luck. We find no evidence of skills, but find evidence of lack of skills in the bottom 10% of funds. We find that outsourcing has a positive effect on GREMFs but a negative effect on global mutual funds overall. We also find no evidence of skills in timing or in stock selection. Overall, our results suggest that there is no benefit to a U.S. domestic investor from investing in GREMFs.