Low-fee ways to hold U.S. and global REITs

Article Excerpt

VANGUARD U.S. REIT ETF $84 (New York symbol VNQ; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Conservative; Market cap: $35.1 billion) provides exposure to a selection of U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). The fund does that by tracking the MSCI U.S. REIT Index. It excludes mortgage REITs and non-real-estate specialty REITs such as timberlands, prisons or cell-towers. The ETF holds about 154 REITs; its top holdings are Vanguard REIT Index Fund (9.9%); Simon Property Group (5.3%); Equinix (3.7%); Prologis (3.6%); Public Storage (3.5%); Welltower (2.7%); AvalonBay Communities (2.6%); Digital Realty Trust (2.6%); Equity Residential (2.6%) and Ventas (2.4%). The main areas it invests in are Retail (18%), Residential (17%), Offices (13%), Healthcare (12%), Industrial (8%) and Hotels (7%). The fund began trading in September 2004. The big size of this actively traded fund—$35.1 billion— provides strong liquidity, with an average of $329 million in units traded daily. Its MER is just 0.12% of assets. The ETF pays a quarterly distribution that amounted to $3.95 for the past…