REITs - Which ones do you own?

I just own iREIT, an exchange-traded fund that owns a dozen or so Canadian REITs. Got hammered in 2008 but possibly a good entry point at these levels. For US REITs, Vanguard has a comparable ETF.

do you have a symbol for me?

You could look into the ishares ETF: XRE. However, the majority of that ETF can be replaced by purchasing the largest few holdings. I own REI.UN and CWT.UN.

I own RioCan (REI.UN) as a proxy for the index. It is only 5% of the portfolio but I'm not very interested in paying 0.55% to own XRE.

CanadianCapitalist said:

I own RioCan (REI.UN) as a proxy for the index. It is only 5% of the portfolio but I'm not very interested in paying 0.55% to own XRE.

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Do you mind me asking you to reflect on the pros and cons of owning a reit fund (XRE) versus one (or two) of the biggest reits (ie REI)?

Thanks!

We have good information available on all the Canadian traded reits in the Real Estate portion of this forum. But if you want all the pros and cons for the REITs I suggest you look into the drill downs we have on REITinvestor.ca. With the Q2s coming out over the next week or two there are lots of big moves in the making.

That being said Dundee has exploded in the last month or so, after GE's major selloff of units.

REITs are a great place to put your money. You can get great yield on strong companies while they also have great opportunity for growth.

Liz said:

Do you mind me asking you to reflect on the pros and cons of owning a reit fund (XRE) versus one (or two) of the biggest reits (ie REI)?

Thanks!

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Pros:
- Cheaper to own one or two REIT.

Cons:
- More risky to own one or two REITs directly. I'm accepting that risk because REITs form only 5% of my portfolio.

As mentioned, it quite easy to mimick/create your own REIT index. The top 5 holdings of XRE make up 70% of the index.

I personally own:
Riocan (REI.UN)
H&R (HR.UN)
Boardwalk (BEI.UN)

Great mix of retail, corporate and residential real estate.

My household also holds XRE (in my wife's fully indexed portfolio)

I own Calloway due to stable Walmart exposure

Northern Property Reit: 8.5% yield at purchase (a bit lower now), 70% payout ratio and CMHC backed.

Short moves into the hotel REIT's could be a wise. Hotels are getting pummeled.

MoneyMaker said:

I own Calloway due to stable Walmart exposure

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I also hold Calloway, for the exact same reason.

The hope is that Walmart will offer some stability if the recession drags out.

Calloway is a safe play however even with Walmart occupying 27% of their space, they have a great deal of exposure to stores than can get hit hard if consumer spending remains poor and vacancies increase. You can still sit back and collect your 11% yield!
H&R on the other hand is only paying 5%, making Calloway a much better investment. HR should pull back soon too, it is priced for perfection and given any troubles at all in the next few months it could come down below the $11 range. They will be reporting soon which will give a good idea if they are infact headed for a rough patch or not.
NPR is also a great place to be. We should have a new drill down up for them soon too which will give a good idea where they are headed. They are very well managed so they should report well.

RI.ca said:

Short moves into the hotel REIT's could be a wise. Hotels are getting pummeled.

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HLR suspends their distribution now RYL (held by the REITinvestor fund) cuts their distribution. INN reported awful as well.

Bad news keeps pounding down the hotels.

I own REI.UN - the only REIT at the moment. I'm happy with it so far - I like its size and access to the Canadian market. Seems its yield could be a bit better, though.

I'd like to learn more about hotel REITs and/or hotel corporation stocks - probably what I'd get into next.