WSJ: For pensions, difficulty of valuing real estate during a pandemic

Valuing a wide-ranging basket of real estate assets, always difficult, has been made tougher with the divergent near-term impacts emanating from the coronavirus pandemic, not to mention the prospect of a long-term, sustained transformation consumer behavior.

“The scarcity of tra­di­tional data points means es­ti­mated val­ues may not price in the true im­pact of the pan­demic, said Christy Fields, a man­ag­ing prin­ci­pal with con­sul­tant Meketa In­vest­ment Group.”

With US public pensions already facing a shortfall estimated at greater than their entire $4Tr holdings, properly marking the 6.1% share in real estate (+60% over the past 13 years) takes on added import.