REIT Funds -- is the time right?

My employer is introducing a new retirement plan, so an investment decision is being forced upon me whether I like it or not. I was just wondering if anyone has an opinion about REIT funds (which is one of the options I have). Would it be a prudent contrarian decision, or just totally reckless to go into one at this point? Some here in the office feel that the commercial real estate market still has a ways to go before bottoming out, as many leases obtained at higher rents run out over the next few years. Still I think it may be a good time to start "averaging in" with systematic contributions every pay period. Any thoughts?

If you have small/mid cap stock funds you probably already have some REIT coverage. The question in my mind is if REITS are truly a separate asset class and what if any addition allocation exposure do I want with it. I treat real estate as a separate class, with low correlation (of course, not recently!) to other equities and bonds, but with a kind of hybrid-like performance: bond-like income yields with some equity-like appreciation potential. I allocate 15% of my portfolio to real estate and don't worry about short term fluctuations/valuation moves other than periodic rebalancing.