Lax lending and overinflated home prices helped cause the financial crisis in 2008, but real estate is still an essential part of an investor’s portfolio when looking to add alternative assets into their mix of ETFs. Investors can look to add real estate ETFs by looking at 2019’s 10 best performers thus far.
Topping the list are a pair of funds from Pacer: the Pacer Benchmark Industrial Real Estate SCTR ETF (NYSEArca: INDS) and the Pacer Benchmark Data & Infrastructure Real Estate SCTR Strategy (NYSEArca: SRVR).
Benefits of INDS and SRVR:
- Publicly Traded REITs have traditionally been good sources of income for investors and may be capital appreciation vehicles as well.
- Dividends1 are a source of income to investors.
- REITs are not directly correlated to traditional equity markets and may offer portfolio diversification and reduce volatility.
INDS seeks to track the total return performance of the Benchmark Industrial Real Estate SCTR℠ Index, which measures the performance of the industrial real estate sector of the U.S. equity market. This includes niche markets in commercial real estate, such as warehouse and self-storage real estate sub-sectors.
For inclusion in INDS, companies are screened based on property type, tenant type and revenue type. All in all, companies must derive 85% or more of their revenues from industrial real estate operations.
For alternate plays in the booming 5G technology space, investors can still bank on wireless carriers looking to upgrade their infrastructure in order to support 5G capability. This is where investment opportunities in 5G infrastructure like SRVR come into play.
Being able to transmit copious amounts of data at a faster rate is certainly of benefit for wireless companies and their users, but 5G could be a major disruptor in various industries. Before this occurs, however, the infrastructure to accommodate this enhanced technology must be in place.
With a buildup necessary in cell towers and distribution warehouses, a demand for public real estate could follow.
Here is the rest of the 10 best gainers in the real estate ETF sector:
| Symbol | ETF Name | YTD |
| INDS | Pacer Benchmark Industrial Real Estate SCTR ETF | 39.68% |
| SRVR | Pacer Benchmark Data & Infrastructure Real Estate SCTR ETF | 39.30% |
| REZ | iShares Residential Real Estate ETF | 30.71% |
| PPTY | PPTY – U.S. Diversified Real Estate ETF | 30.30% |
| XLRE | Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund | 29.99% |
| VNQ | Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund | 29.38% |
| PSR | Invesco Active U.S. Real Estate Fund | 29.31% |
| FREL | Fidelity MSCI Real Estate Index ETF | 29.15% |
| BBRE | JPMorgan BetaBuilders MSCI US REIT ETF | 28.51% |
| IYR | iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF | 28.32% |
For more information on Pacer real estate ETFs, click here.
For more market trends, visit ETF Trends.
