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Over the past year or so, real estate has not been considered the ideal place for investors to safely invest their cash. With all the foreclosures and the breakdown of the residential and commercial lending markets, returns on real estate investments have been up and down. However, in a down market there’s always ways to make money and it looks like REIT’s have started to turn things around. For those of you who don’t know, a REIT is a real estate investment trust. REIT’s group together income producing properties and investors can buy shares in the REIT. It’s kind of like a mutual fund comprised entirely of real estate. Over the past 6 months, some of the top publicly traded REIT’s have done very well. For example, Macerich Company (MAC) is up about 40% and local REIT Boston Properties, Inc. (BXP) is up about 25%. These are just two examples, but across the REIT landscape, similar gains can be seen. While these REIT’s were getting battered in 2007 and 2008, they have regrouped to acquire highly discounted income producing properties that have become abundant due to the recession. See WSJ article here>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704234304574626612092410016.html
In a time where real estate can be a difficult area to invest in, REIT’s seemingly have shown to be one vehicle investors can use successfully to see positive returns. Have you invested any of your portfolio in a REIT?