There does seem to be a relatively high amount of crossover with equivalent passive funds. The top 10s of XDER and TRY and not too dissimilar, for example.
However, you make a good point: it has outperformed over the long term.
I’ve actually added TRY to my portfolio as my only property-specific holding since this post. To my mind, gearing and opportunity to buy at a discount to NAV negate the higher fee.
TRY is one of the best performing ITs over the past 30 years – I think it’s beaten only by SMT.