Asia Pacific listed real estate companies were down in February, posting slight negative returns of –0.7 percent, according to SNL Financial, with regional returns denominated back to US dollars and country returns in local currency. The sideways performance was not unexpected as the market took a hiatus after a very bullish start to the year (up 5.4 percent in January) based on increased concerns over newly-announced policy cooling measures in a few markets. As a result, the 2013 year-to-date performance through February has Asia Pacific listed real estate companies keeping pace with global real estate returns as both are up 4.6 percent.

Among the major countries, Japan continues on a torrid pace, up 13.6 percent already for the year as the market rallied on government stimulus measures and asset reinflation expectations. Hong Kong (4.5 percent) and Singapore (2.2 percent) trailed Japan but remain positive fo