Boston, MA -- (SBWire) -- 12/27/2011 --Specialty real estate investment trusts (REITs) are performing extremely well, according to alternative investment advocacy group, Alternative Asset Analysis (AAA).

Although REITs have outperformed other markets generally over the past year or so, the more niche the REIT, the better they have performed, according to AAA, which supports the alternative investment market in general.

AAA’s analysis partner, Anthony Johnson, is basing his assertion on a recent report in the New York Times, which showed that the REITs that invested in non-standard and niche property, such as warehouses, cold storage and energy infrastructure, outperformed the rest of the real estate investment market this year.

“What we’ve seen is these specialty or non-core property types have actually done pretty well this year,” explained Steve Shigekawa, of the Neuberger Berman Real Estate fund, when speaking to the newspaper. His firm invests funds in data centres and storage for timber, as well as self-storage units.

Mr Johnson said that the performance of the niche REITs reflected a general trend moving toward the more alternative of alternative investments. He explained, ”The Dow Jones general REITS index shows that this asset class has delivered returns of 3.32 in 2011. This compares with returns of 7.94 for the Dow Jones Specialty REITs index.”

Data storage centres are particularly lucrative for investors at the moment, as the demand for data centre space is increasing all the time, particularly with the emergence of cloud computing.

Mr Johnson added, “Alternative investments do not correlate closely with general economic trends, which means that they are perfect for people who want to diversify their portfolios against risk.

“This has, of course, become increasingly the case in light of the economic crisis, as investors are all too aware that they could potentially lose thousands over night if the market should crash off the back of another US or Eurozone crisis,” added Johnson.