Blackstone Continued: Betting on Continued Rise in Investment Real Estate Values

This is a follow-up to my earlier posting about Blackstone Group's unsolicited acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust. From the Wall Street Journal: "With its bold move to buy Equity Office Properties Trust in the largest real-estate deal in history, Blackstone Group is betting that commercial real-estate prices haven't gotten out of hand, despite a big run-up in recent years. Blackstone's move to convert the publicly traded real-estate investment trust into a privately owned business rippled through the REIT industry, lifting shares of such companies across the board by 3.2% in anticipation of more buyouts and mergers." More validation of what we are telling our clients . . . investment real estate continues to climb.