Look at the top holdings in REIT funds by market capitalization.
You will find companies that operate data centers, cell phone towers, logistics/fulfillment centers, and long term care facilities that use the legal structure of a REIT, but you have to look hard to find what you expect: apartments, offices, warehouses, shopping malls.
I don't see a compelling reason to overweight what amounts to the digital economy infrastructure, especially given the weighting of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and the others already in a broad US market index. The argument in favor of overweighting REITs was that a lot of rental real estate was privately held not inside REITs, but with the current construction of the REIT indices you end up overweighting the digital economy not rental real estate. To me this is a case where reality is different than theory, and advice from many years ago is no longer valid because reality deviates from theory.
You will find companies that operate data centers, cell phone towers, logistics/fulfillment centers, and long term care facilities that use the legal structure of a REIT, but you have to look hard to find what you expect: apartments, offices, warehouses, shopping malls.
I don't see a compelling reason to overweight what amounts to the digital economy infrastructure, especially given the weighting of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and the others already in a broad US market index. The argument in favor of overweighting REITs was that a lot of rental real estate was privately held not inside REITs, but with the current construction of the REIT indices you end up overweighting the digital economy not rental real estate. To me this is a case where reality is different than theory, and advice from many years ago is no longer valid because reality deviates from theory.
Statistics: Posted by stan1 — Tue Jan 13, 2026 10:02 am — Replies 1 — Views 36