Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are highly favoured by investors here due to the steady stream of dividends paid out to shareholders. For the good part of the last decade, investors have viewed REITs as quasi-bond instruments, paying out a steady stream of dividends on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Without much volatility for REITs throughout the last decade, except for the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011, the Fed’s Taper Tantrum in 2013 and the oil price crash in 2015, REITs have rewarded investors fairly well during this period, with a good number of REITs outperforming the Straits Times Index on a total return basis. ‘This time it’s different’ is an extremely dangerous phrase to use in the financial markets; an exceptional run up in prices over 2019 had pushed REIT prices sky high, and as recently as a few months back, some investors were seeing 3-4% yields from REITs as a ‘new normal’,...