While watching the nonstop London SummerOlympics coverage recently, I was struck by the globalappeal of this mega sporting extravaganza. As the Games come to aclose following two full weeks of competition, as expected theworld’s two greatest superpowers, the US and China, racked upimpressive overall medal counts. But for me, the Games are alwaysabout the stories behind the athletes themselves, and of theindividual standouts who inevitably emerge from countries large andsmall.

The same is true for the increasingly global nature ofinstitutional real estate, which, for the timebeing anyway, we could dub the “PropertyOlympics.”

A good example is the pending debut of REITs in the Republic ofKenya in East Africa. By year’s end, REITs areexpected to debut in tiny Kenya with 43 million residents, afterthe country’s Capital Markets Authority finalized the REITframework.