The top-performing Australian property funds of 2023

Listed property has been on the nose for a while now, the sector booking some terrible performance figures on the back of soft economic and market conditions. That's because of the cyclical nature of commercial property, which leaves the asset class highly vulnerable to rising rates and broader economic malaise.

Glancing through the list of Australia’s largest property funds, there’s a lot of red ink. Among 15 of the property funds covered by Morningstar, only one delivered a positive double-digit return in calendar 2023. And returns for four of them are negative over these 12 months, the worst of them delivering -18% and -21%

But it wasn’t all bad news. Just as the property sector is a broad mix, the performance has varied across different fund managers, reflecting their exposure to different parts of the market. In the following wire, below the top 10 list here, we look more closely at the five top performers.

How we compiled these lists

These global equities funds are all listed on the Livewire 'Find Funds' menu (top right-hand side of your page). It should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list of all the global equities funds domiciled in Australia as there are others are not listed in Livewire's 'Find Funds' marketplace.

The filters we used were:

• In the “Fund type” box, select “Managed Funds”
• In “Asset Class”, select “property – global"
• We then manually filtered results based on 1-year returns.

Note: Fund performance is typically viewed over longer timeframes than one year (i.e. three-year and five-year rolling periods). Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future return.

The table above captures the best-performing global equity funds for the past 12 months. All data is supplied by Morningstar. If you would like to conduct your own research into top-performing funds, you can do so by clicking here.

1. Quay Global Real Estate Fund

With a focus on preserving as well as creating wealth, this fund – jointly run by portfolio managers Justin Blaess and Chris Bedingfield, invests in a wide variety of listed real estate opportunities across multiple geographies.

Assets are selected for their ability to deliver total returns throughout the cycle, and as opportunities to benefit from counter-cyclical themes.

The fund prefers to hold property assets for their stable rental income characteristics rather than those linked with developers or that are located in emerging markets.

Managed Fund

Quay Global Real Estate Fund (Unhedged)

Global Property

View

2. Dexus AREIT Fund (managed fund) (ASX: DXAF)

This property securities fund invests in listed Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (AREITs), providing exposure to a portfolio of diversified commercial property assets across Australia.

The investment team includes portfolio manager Mark Mazzarella, senior analyst Cindy Effendi, and investment analyst Richard Stone.

The fund aims to provide investors with a consistent and relatively high level of income that is equivalent to at least 110% of the average yield of the S&P/ASX 300 AREIT Index Dividend Yield, against which it is benchmarked.

The Dexus fund adopts a disciplined investment strategy designed to reduce both market and specific risk, while aiming to provide lower-than-market volatility and a level of capital growth that at least matches increases in CPI over a five to seven-year period.

Managed Fund

Dexus Global REIT Fund

Global Property

View

3. Cromwell Phoenix Property Securities Fund

The Cromwell Phoenix Property Securities Fund invests in a portfolio of property securities the team believes have solid business models, good governance, and are trading below their intrinsic value. With a focus on fundamental research, they focus on smaller, under-the-radar companies that are often overlooked by other professional investors because of their size.

The fund’s portfolio manager is Stuart Cartledge.

Managed Fund

Cromwell Phoenix Property Securities Fund

Australian Property

View

4. MA Secured Real Estate Income Fund

This is a real estate credit fund available to retail investors, providing access to a diversified loan portfolio secured by registered first mortgages over Australian property. With a joint aim of seeking to preserve capital and deliver monthly income, the fund’s yield target is the RBA Cash Rate + 5.00% p.a. (current target return 9.35% p.a.).¹

The fund, which was launched in April 2021, is led by MA portfolio manager Drew Bowie.

Managed Fund

MA Secured Real Estate Income Fund

Australian Property

View

5. Principal Global Property Securities Fund

Investing in a broad selection of global real estate assets, this fund is focused on generating consistent, attractive risk-adjusted returns through bottom-up stock selection.

Launched in February 2007, the investment process is underpinned by a “quality at a reasonable price” style, which favours above-average companies trading at average or discounted valuations.

Managed Fund

Principal Global Property Securities Fund

Global Property

View