According to the FRED's housing index, housing prices have almost doubled in the past 10 years. The performance of most residential REIT share prices have been breakeven at best (e.g. UDR +5% total since 2016, ESS +15%, EQR -20%, AVB +5% etc...) even though these REITs have assets in areas that have seen housing price growth.
If you were to have bought a house and rented it 10 years ago even with a relatively low cap rate (say, 4%), ignoring the pain/uncertainty of property management, you would have made the 4% annually in income AND significant capital appreciation.
Why isn't capital appreciation meaningfully reflected in the share prices of REITs?