Where Should You Invest? ... You will not believe this. As of last Friday, you would have made more money if you had bought CB Richard Ellis (NYSE: CBG) on the day it opened (at $19 on June 10, 2004), than if you had bought Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) on the day that it opened (at $100 on August 19, 2004) -- 91.6% versus 85.9%. Who knew?

Last year I wondered aloud, "Which is the better deal? With all the hype surrounding Google, will its stock be wildly overpriced? Could CBRE's stock actually outperform Google's over the next five years?" (Should You Buy Google or CB Richard Ellis? May 4, 2004). Of course, five years is a long time, and the jury is still out.

Forbes' current "Special Real Estate Issue" (February 28, 2005) features two (that makes it special?) articles on real estate -- "Mr. Big" about Mort Zuckerman's Boston Properties and "Rating the 20 Biggest REITs." Amazingly, REITs have "outperformed the stock market with a 21% annualized total return to the market's 5.1%" over the past three years.

Like other REITs, Boston Properties finds it more lucrative to develop its own properties rather than buying. Forbes reports, "First-class existing buildings are priced to yield only around 5% to an all-cash buyer, says research firm Green Street Advisors. (The return they talk about is rent minus the costs of operating and maintaining the building and leasing any empty space.) But a skillfully developed new property can bag an annual cash return of up to 10% of its construction costs."

What do you think? With interest rates rising and only modest economic growth, will REITs continue to beat the S&P 500? Where will you invest your retirement dollars -- in real estate or technology? Blast away. I'll report more in a future Dispatch.

Full Disclosure: I do not own CBRE or Google stock.

Spread the Word... Many thanks to Mark McLaughlin and McLaughlin Ventures for sponsoring this week's Dispatch. If you would like to Sponsor the PikeNet Dispatch, send e-mail or call me at 415-461-4703.

--Peter Pike