Purpose: This paper compares the benefits of direct international real estate investments in a mixed asset portfolio from the perspective of a passive investor with high and low bond allocation. Design/methodology/approach: Due to high data availability and its professionalism, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund was used as a representative example. Real estate indices from 8 countries were used for the portfolio analysis. The data were desmoothed according to Geltners’s 1993 approach. Findings: The optimal real estate ratio in the present case is around 20–55%. However, this is strongly dependent on the bond ratio of the multi-asset portfolio. Portfolios with a high equity ratio benefit more from the additional direct real estate investments than portfolios with high bond ratios. Research limitations/implications: A rebalancing of individual stocks and bonds was not analysed. Only indexes from MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) were available. Practical implications: Concludes that the weighting of stocks and bonds has a strong influence on the optimal real estate ratio and therefore structural changes that affect this weighting. Originality/value: The originality of the paper lies in the analysis with different weights of stocks and bonds, the consideration of 8 real estate markets and the observation period. The results of the work highlight areas of interest for further research.