Is it better to invest in REITs or real estate?
There isn't a type of real estate investment that is better than another. It depends on many factors, including the investor's individual preferences, risk tolerance, and timeline. If you're looking for something steady that requires little to no work on your end, REITs are a good option.
There isn't a type of real estate investment that is better than another. It depends on many factors, including the investor's individual preferences, risk tolerance, and timeline. If you're looking for something steady that requires little to no work on your end, REITs are a good option.
Risks of investing in REITs include higher dividend taxes, sensitivity to interest rates, and exposure to specific property trends.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of buying REIT shares rather than rental properties is simplicity. REIT investing allows for sharing in value appreciation and rental income without being involved in the hassle of actually buying, managing and selling property. Diversification is another benefit.
Nine Reasons Not to Invest in REITs
But, REITs are not risk free. They may have highly variable returns, are sensitive to changes in interest rates, have income tax implications, may not be liquid, and fees can impact total returns.
| REIT SUBGROUP | AVERAGE ANNUAL TOTAL RETURN (1994-2023) |
|---|---|
| Retail | 11.2% |
| Office | 10.1% |
| Lodging/Resorts | 9.0% |
| Diversified | 7.9% |
REITs generate a steady income stream for investors but offer little capital appreciation. Most REITs are publicly traded like stocks, which makes them highly liquid, unlike real estate investments.
Any increase in the short-term interest rate eats into the profit—so if it doubled in our example above, there'd be no profit left. And if it goes up even higher, the REIT loses money. All of that makes mortgage REITs extremely volatile, and their dividends are also extremely unpredictable.
REITs historically perform well during and after recessions | Pensions & Investments.
March 5, 2024, at 3:47 p.m. REITs are public companies with large real estate portfolios, and are known to havesizable dividends. Real estate investments can be an excellent way to earn returns, generate cash flow, hedge against inflation and diversify an investment portfolio.
Is it hard to sell a REIT?
Getting out of a non-traded real estate investment trust, or REIT, can often be rather difficult and expensive. Once a REIT is closed to new investors, the board of directors of the REIT can suspend the redemption policy.
If the REIT held the property for more than one year, long-term capital gains rates apply; investors in the 10% or 15% tax brackets pay no long-term capital gains taxes, while those in all but the highest income bracket will pay 15%.
But especially today, REITs offer far better return prospects and much lower risk because their valuations are so heavily discounted. Investing in REITs provides both a margin of safety and future upside potential. This explains why I am buying REITs instead of rental properties.
A lot of REIT investors focus too way much on the dividend yield. They think that a high dividend yield implies that a REIT is cheap and a good investment opportunity. In reality, it is often the opposite, and the dividend does not say much, if anything, about the valuation of a REIT.
Still, in a general sense, they are income securities and do trade like income securities. You can usually count on high-yielding REITs moving up when rates are moving down.
“I recommend REITs within a managed portfolio,” Devine said, noting that most investors should limit their REIT exposure to between 2 percent and 5 percent of their overall portfolio. Here again, a financial professional can help you determine what percentage of your portfolio you should allocate toward REITs, if any.
To qualify as a REIT, a company must have the bulk of its assets and income connected to real estate investment and must distribute at least 90 percent of its taxable income to shareholders annually in the form of dividends.
This is a general rule of thumb that determines a base level of rental income a rental property should generate. Following the 2% rule, an investor can expect to realize a gross yield from a rental property if the monthly rent is at least 2% of the purchase price.
Investors can benefit from allocating as little as 5% to REITs. Investor confidence in real estate reached unprecedented levels in 2022, owing to home price appreciation and higher yields for other asset classes, such as REITs, in low-rate environments.
An eye-popping yield likely inspired Jeff Yass of Susquehanna to buy 1.4 million shares of AGNC in the third quarter. Yass isn't the only billionaire placing bets on this mortgage REIT. John Overdeck and David Siegel of Two Sigma Investments scooped up 1.2 million shares.
How much money do I need to invest to make $1000 a month?
The truth is that most investors won't have the money to generate $1,000 per month in dividends; not at first, anyway. Even if you find a market-beating series of investments that average 3% annual yield, you would still need $400,000 in up-front capital to hit your targets. And that's okay.
At that rate of return, a monthly investment of $300 in REITs would grow into $1 million in about 30 years. If you invested more money into REITs or those producing a higher average annual return, you could become a millionaire even faster.
But since REITs are invested in property, there's more protection against the horror show of having shares crash to $0. By law, 75% of a REITs asset must be invested in real estate. The market value of the property owned by the REIT offers a bit of protection, as long as the value of the property doesn't go to zero.
REITs and stocks can both pay dividends, usually on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. Some investments will also offer special dividends, but they're unpredictable.
The generous dividend payments enjoyed by REIT investors may look particularly attractive moving forward. With rate cuts on the horizon, dividend yields for REITs may look more favorable than yields on fixed-income securities and money market accounts.
