Does anyone else think equal weighting of the 16 countries used despite different size and periods of data availability for the different countries could result in misleading results? The housing returns seemed surprisingly high to me.
I did find another reason that reported housing returns are too high though. This is their key input 'net rental yields [which] use rental income net of maintenance costs, ground rent, and other irrecoverable expenditure'
That neglects to factor in that after say 50 years most houses need to be replaced or massively renovated. Factor in that expenditure and the real returns should be somewhere between 1 and 2 percent lower.