Greg Andrews, a retail REIT analyst for Green Street Advisers, an independent research company, said the Australian investors chose their partners well.

In going after Equity Office, the owner of 500 office buildings across the country, Mr. Roth seemed to some investors to be changing course, said Matthew Ostrower, a REIT analyst at Morgan Stanley.

With mall prices rapidly rising, Rouse apparently believed it could no longer justify buying more shopping centers to offset the gains from its land assets, said Matthew Ostrower, a retail REIT analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Although the land business is new to General Growth, Greg Andrews, a retail REIT analyst at Green Street Advisors, said he did not expect the company to sell the land business.

"This will be a political hot potato," said Ross Nussbaum, a senior REIT analyst for Banc ofAmerica Securities.

I would call it fascinating, very interesting and very creative as retail goes," said Matthew L. Ostrower, a REIT analyst at Morgan Stanley, "but I would also call it high risk.

"These companies don't have to sell a widget every day," Jonathan Litt, a REIT analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, said.

Yet even the hovering concern of a modest rise in inflation may turn out to be a positive for REIT's, said David Shulman, a REIT analyst for Lehman Brothers.

David G. Shulman, a REIT analyst for Lehman Brothers, said it was not at all certain that rents in the major urban office markets would continue to rise.

"It never became a truly well-oiled machine to correspond with the vision he laid out for creating a national office company," said Matthew Ostrower, a senior REIT analyst for Morgan Stanley.