Among these funds with so-called "hybrid features" are Redefine Income Fund and Growthpoint.

Redefine has been selling various investments in other listed property stocks since May last year and now has a 60-40 weighting in favour of fixed properties.

The proceeds of the sale of its listed stocks have enabled Redefine to buy physical property, which is cheaper than listed property.

Redefine CEO Brian Azizollahoff says Redefine has bought about R490m worth of physical property during the first six months of the current financial year.

Growthpoint, the largest listed property fund on the JSE, has also recently sold out of a substantial amount of its listed property stocks.

Growthpoint CEO Norbert Sasse says he cannot specify how much of the listed stocks Growthpoint has sold because the company is in a closed period.

But Sasse says the forward yield on listed property shares ranges from a low of below 7% to 9% on average, while the forward yield on direct property is still considerably higher than listed property.

When yields come down, prices go up, and vice versa.

"You could probably still get good (fixed) retail property at yields of 8,5% and 9,5%. You can still get pretty good office investment grade between 9,5% and 11% and good industrial property at between 10% and 12%," says Sasse.

"There are better investment opportunities for us in buying direct properties and settling debt relative to owning listed property at such low yields."

Mariette Warner, fund manager of Stanlib Property Income Fund, says some property funds are reducing their "hybrid" structures. The sale of listed property stock will be yield-enhancing and will enable funds to buy higher-yielding physical property or to fund capital expenditure programmes.

But Warner says other listed property funds have no intention of selling their listed property stocks at the moment because they believe there is "good earnings potential" in the units they own.