Direct investment in commercial property outperformed all other mainstream institutional asset classes in the UK in the 12 months to December 2002, according to new survey conducted by the RICS Foundation

The charity, which conducts research into land, property, construction and development, found that property has also bettered equities over both five-year and 10-year periods. The foundation says that the 10-year statistics provide a very strong argument in favour of the use of property as a diversification tool by investors.