I have not check their # but I think they were referring to housing, i.e., home owners, physically owning houses, etc. REITs own mostly commercial and you also have a bunch of middlemen between your rent and returns. Like hedge funds charging 2/20. With fee, if the underlying appreciates 10%, a 2/20 set up will reduce the returns to less than 8%.I think that research is done by real estate developers. It is not true in public traded markets. Here is the return and volatility since REIT's are publicly traded. Portfolio1 is Stocks and portfolio2 is REITs. It has been more volatile.
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