The sales effort is a way to reduce exposure to some of the high-risk, high-return property funds that got scuffed up during the financial crisis, said Timothy Walsh, director of the New Jersey Division of Investment, which manages the state's pension money.

WSJ: New Jersey Fund Move Could Clarify Prices

REITs offer investors a middle way between the high-risk, high-return vulture funds and stodgy, low-return Japanese property developers, such as those attached to the Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo keiretsu.

ECONOMIST: Japanese property