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Samantha Hodge is a journalist with IFA magazine, a Morningstar publication.

AREITs continue to suffer from a lack of investor demand four years after the onset of the GFC, but there appears to be an increasing trend for investors turning their attention towards stocks with exposure to riskier sectors of housing and retail in order to boost returns. For example, small listed real estate investment trusts (REIT) have managed to stabilise and are starting to attract more institutional support.

Now that property trusts are gingerly setting themselves back onto their feet, whatever their strategy, they are starting to reconfigure in the wake of the GFC.

"Property trusts have really been trying to reinvent or redefine what they are," Australian Unity chief executive David Bryant says.

"I think one of the challenges for everyone when they look at the sector is, is this just an industrial trading company and instead of shampoo its product is property or is it property ownership? At a retail level, investors have always seen listed property trusts predominantly as owners of property and collectors of rent. That is what they understand to be the dominant component of what they're investing in."

Bryant explains that property trusts are likely to go one of two ways: a company will either pick a sector and create a clear strategy, such as Stockland (SGP) with its three R (residential, retirement living and retail) strategy; or revert to the older-generation, listed-property-owner type of trust such as Centro (CNP) and its plans to merge its businesses.

"Most people are getting away from the 'be all things to all people' space, which is where a lot of the debt came from. Getting back to a more specialised and more clearly defined portfolio [is key]," he says.

Morningstar senior research analyst Adrian Atkins agrees, saying: "They're trying to just get back to the old days of being just a low-growth income investment. So they're reducing gearing and selling foreign assets and portfolios and just going back to basics. That's the trend right now - going back to basics.

"It might be pretty difficult to sell so it could take years [until they are back to basics], but given gearing is okay, it's not a massive concern."