Subject: REITs Are Attracting Interest From Investors Seeking Hedge
Date: Published: 11/4/87 67 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    REAL ESTATE:  
    REITs Are Attracting Interest
    From Investors Seeking Hedge
    ---
    By William Celis III
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS are getting a lot more
 attention these days from investors searching for a measure
 of protection from stock market volatility and economic
 uncertainty.
    ---
[49 lines irrelevant to AIDS have been removed. -- sysop]

    Brokers Worry Over AIDS Disclosure
    The AIDS epidemic has raised nettlesome issues for
 real-estate brokers in cities with large homosexual
 populations.  Are brokers legally required to tell potential
 buyers that a seller has the disease?  If they do disclose,
 are they violating the privacy of a seller?  These issues,
 says a spokeswoman for the Miami Board of Realtors, are "on a
 lot of people's minds."
    There's no evidence suggesting that AIDS is spread through
 casual contact, but brokers assert that the disease sometimes
 sparks irrational behavior in some buyers.  At a recent
 meeting of the Colorado Association of Realtors, brokers
 quizzed lawyers during a legal seminar about responsibilities
 to buyers and sellers.  The 750,000-member National
 Association of Realtors says that as the epidemic has
 worsened, inquiries from worried brokers have increased.
 Robert D. Butters, deputy general counsel of the national
 Realtors group, says brokers face a dilemma in AIDS
 disclosures because existing laws aren't easily applied to
 the issue.
    Under the law, a broker may be held liable if he fails to
 disclose material facts about a house, whether it be a leaky
 roof or cracked foundation.  But "material fact is defined
 very loosely in what you have to disclose," says Mr. Butters.
 Because of the ambiguity, he says if brokers are asked
 directly, "the safer course ...  is to disclose.  I wish we
 could give more specific advice to our members as to where
 the line should be drawn.  But there are no hard and fast
 rules."
    California has taken steps to eliminate the questions.
 Last year, it approved a disclosure bill that, among other
 things, makes it illegal for brokers to tell potential buyers
 whether a seller has AIDS. The law, the first of its kind,
 stemmed partly from a lawsuit filed last year in Oakland.  A
 buyer sued to recoup a $10,000 deposit she made on a house in
 Berkeley after learning that the seller had hepatitis, an
 ailment often found in medical histories of AIDS patients.
    AIDS hasn't been an issue everywhere.  No other state has
 followed California's lead.  Los Angeles-based Coldwell Banker
 Residential Services Inc. says it doesn't have a formal AIDS
 policy for its offices outside California.  In Seattle, Bud
 Bennett, the owner of a Red Carpet franchise, says neither
 brokers nor consumers have asked about AIDS. 

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]