REIT Investing - Risks and Rewards

[Leonardo Candoza]

I'm just starting out in my career in commercial real estate (corporate gig) and my pockets aren't fat enough (yet) to start buying my own properties. I want to start investing in REITs but I know REITs come with their own risks.

My questions for the successful investors here is, do you invest in any REITs? Would you recommend a beginner to buy them, and if not what would you recommend for a beginner with less than $10k saved?

[Aaron K.]

@Leonardo Candoza depends on your time horizon for purchasing your own properties but I'd probably either go into a nice mix of ETFs or just a savings account. Because you aren't going to learn much by investing in a REIT.

[Leonardo Candoza]

Originally posted by @Aaron K.:

@Leonardo Candoza depends on your time horizon for purchasing your own properties but I'd probably either go into a nice mix of ETFs or just a savings account. Because you aren't going to learn much by investing in a REIT.

I think you can learn plenty by investing in REITs, just like you can learn plenty by investing in stocks. I'm just wondering if it's worth the time and if you can earn a decent return from it because you can't get the same leverage that you can with owning your own real estate.

[Aaron K.]

@Leonardo Candoza you can but it will be much more similar to learning about stocks and there won't be a large transfer of knowledge when you buy your own properties.  It'd be like you having a dream of opening a restaurant but in the meantime you only want to invest in stocks like McDonald's or Darden Restaurants.  They are in the same industry yes but you won't learn much about the restaurant business by doing that so why limit yourself to only those investments.