Residential was the only sector that could boast capital growth in every market where institutional investors represented in the Canada Property Index hold properties.

Since only publicly traded entities are part of the analysis, many of Canada's largest real estate players are excluded. However, other criteria to qualify would eliminate several of them anyway.

Annual results of the REALPAC/IPD Canada Quarterly Property Index, released late last week, reveal a year of below-average performance for index participants' directly held standing assets.

The reclassification from an industry group within the financials sector formally occurs on September 1, and will also introduce a new term for real estate investment trusts (REITs), which will become known as Equity REITs.

A new standardized approach for collecting, measuring and interpreting real estate investment performance data responds to the ever widening scope of global portfolios and institutional investors' need for transparency and cross-border consistency.