It makes a great deal of sense to stress about it when you have a lot of long-term debt used to purchase your real estate assets, and have some control over the lease terms you offer. If you think the end of the boom part of the cycle is 6 months away, you want to lock people into the longest-term leases possible, so that they expire when the market is again, if not strong, at least not weak. If you think the end of the boom part of the cycle is 4 years away, you want to offer the shortest-term leases the tenant will accept, because they will then be forced to renew at a higher rate.

This is very similar to the dry-bulk market. It should be instructive to look at how companies like DryShips and Diana Shipping handled the enormous spike in the Baltic Dry Index several years ago, how they've fared since, and how they've managed their businesses afterward. The cyclical nature of markets cannot necessarily be controlled, but it can be harnessed to outperform one's peers, and if you are a REIT portfolio manager or smaller property manager, your job depends on doing just that.