Do any of you like REITS in 2016?

[James Park]

I am starting to do some research on investing in REITS. I am not talking about the brick and mortar REITS, but financial/mortgage REITS. I know that there are interest rate risks as when rates go higher the REITS will get hurt. How many of you guys think that there will be couple more rate hikes coming up in 2016?  

Just curious to see if there are any REIT investors here. What do you think are the pros and cons of owning a REIT?

[Greg Scott]

REITs are highly correlated to the stock market.  REITs do not give you many of the real benefits of investing directly in real estate such as 1) buying below market value, 2) depreciation expense, and 3) leverage.  On top of that, you pay the management company a large fee to manage the portfolio.

Once you get good at real estate investing, you see a REIT like a bad stock investment.