Asia Pacific listed real estate companies, along with global real estate companies, had a difficult May, with the markets providing negative returns of 9.2 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, according to SNL Financial, with regional returns denominated back to US dollars and country returns in local currency. The late-month swoon was the combined result of expectations of an earlier end to US stimulus measures by the US Federal Reserve, slowing regional GDP growth, and reduced (or maybe more normalised) expectations stemming from Abenomics in Japan. As a result of the May downturn, Asia Pacific listed real estate companies are up just slightly, at 1.6 percent, for the year through May, lagging global real estate returns of 7.1 percent.

With the exception of Japan, REITs generally fared worse than developers during May. Among the ma