The most dramatic change in the real estate industry in recent years has been the rapid increase in securitization through real estate investment trusts (REITs). Many factors have contributed to the growth of REIT initial and secondary public offerings, including changes in capital requirements for commercial lenders making mortgage loans more costly, and changes. in tax laws reducing the favoured status of other ownership forms.' It is often argued that REITs trade at discounts to the net asset value of the underlying properties, but the only evidence of this is indirect.2 This paper summarizes the first direct evidence on premiums and discounts that were computed using a large sample of equity REITs from 1985-92. Descriptive statistics are examined in three ways. First, we analyze the sizes, property types, incomes, expenses, and diversification of the equity REITs for each year. Next, the data were segmented by property type and size class. Each REIT was classified as an apartment, warehouse, retail, office or diversified REIT. The size segmentation is based on quartiles derived from total assets. In the third part of our analysis, we then look at differences within each size segment in expenses, cash flow yield, diversification, and capital structure.