U.S. REITs for Canadian Investors

Article Excerpt

The U.S. opens up a big market for Canadians looking to invest in commercial real estate. However, direct access to that real estate (multi-family, retail, offices or industrial properties) is difficult for most Canadian individual investors. As with all commercial real estate, the large size of those transactions can block investment. The specialist knowledge it requires and expensive transaction costs are also factors. REITs let you overcome those challenges. Those trusts also give investors lots of income. That’s because they distribute almost all of their earnings to unitholders. As a result, they pay little or no tax, since most of their profits flow through to investors. Note though, that Canadian unitholders pay a 15% withholding tax on dividends from U.S. REITs or REIT ETFs. In most cases, however, if you hold the REITs or REIT ETFs outside your RRSP, you can get a Canadian income-tax credit to offset that tax. If you hold the investments in an RRSP, the withholding tax is not…