On the heels of Starwood Capital Group's agreement to acquire seven U.S. shopping malls for $1 billion from The Westfield Group and private equity group KKR Financial Holdings' starting to acquire retail real estate, REITs across the country are gearing up for a surge in new retail properties to hit the market in the second half of this year. In some of those cases, the REITs themselves will be the ones putting the properties up for sale.