VNQ has gained about 14% in 2012. Investors are looking at REITs as a way to cash in on any recovery in the U.S. housing market. They are not direct investments in physical real estate, rather, they invest in the mortgages on real estate properties, reports MarketWire. [ETFs to Capture the Turnaround in the Housing Market]
“Housing has gone from a big negative to neutral” for the economy said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “By this time next year it will be a plus and two years from now a big plus and one of the reasons the economy will be growing much more quickly than many think in 2014 and 2015.”
Vanguard REIT Index ETF
Tisha Guerrero contributed to this article.