Today I'm formalizing my written Investment Policy and ran across an interesting question. Most "experts" recommend some flavor of a stock to bond ratio (i.e. 60/40, bonds as % of age, etc.) and I was trying to decide where to put the real estate investments. I assume we lump direct ownership and REITS together. I'm also ignoring that we can treat them as an investment class of their own because you would still need to pull the percentage from stocks, bonds, or a little from each. So, I'm still left with a question.
How do you classify real estate investments and why?