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Have globalization and increasing economic and financial integration affected the rates of return of publicly traded real estate companies around the world? Using a set of multifactor models for annual data for 946 firms from 16 countries over the sample period, 1995-2002, we estimate the impact of a country's economic openness on returns of publicly traded real estate firms, controlling for the effects of global capital markets, domestic macroeconomic conditions and firm-specific variables. We find that a country's real estate security excess (risk-adjusted) returns are negatively related to its openness. The results are robust across different multifactor model specifications and are a testament to increasing global financial integration and its interplay with the real estate sector.Increasing global integration of financial and economic activities might be expected to impact real estate investors and markets. Free trade treaties and the expansion of the World Trade Organization have promoted international trade and investment flows and have caused structural shifts across national boundaries for the demand for inputs, including real estate. In the financial markets, burgeoning real estate securitization and the changing real estate financial system have generated intense international investor interest. Global integration has had impacts via real and financial markets upon the pricing of and investment in local assets. As real estate companies invest in real properties and are themselves real estate investment vehicles for other investors in international financial markets, it is natural to examine the overall effect of globalization on real estate companies, despite the localness of real estate.The key issue explored in this article is: Has increasing integration and globalization of economic-financial markets affected real returns for publicly traded real estate companies? The implied interplay between globalization and real estate markets remains, surprisingly, relatively uncharted territory, with notable *