Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

How do you invest in the housing market?

My original idea that houses were built with lumber has shown me that there is a greater correlation with lumber and trade politics than with building. What has anyone found to be a good investment in the current housing market?

Comments

  • edited September 2016
    @Muggles208
    Housing and/or real estate are different critters sharing some of the same world, eh?
    Many of the better real estates funds at this time have YTD returns in the +6 thru +11%. Housing/construction, on the other hand, indicate flat thru +2% YTD. Most real estate funds are property related, while construction/housing is the builders/suppliers to the housing market (Home Depot, etc.)

    The first link below is for Fidelity's Construction and Housing fund.

    https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/316390616?type=sq-NavBar

    http://etfdb.com/etfdb-category/building--construction-/

    We've invested in construction/housing several years ago, but all real estate holdings at this time are real estate funds, being about 12% of our total investments.
    Our 2 cents worth of thought.
    Regards,
    Catch
  • WY - Weyerhaeuser
  • catch22: Would you mind sharing your real estate funds ?
    Derf
  • edited September 2016
    Hi @Derf

    A quick overview. We are about 50/50 equity and bonds for our overall portfolio.
    For the equity portion, about 25% of the total equity value are these 3 real estate funds.... FRIFX , BRUIX and DPRRX. The last two are in accounts outside of Fidelity and the only choices available. These 2 accounts will be transitioned to Fidelity in the near future. These monies will likely go to FRIFX and FREL barring a market burn. 'Course, at Fido via our brokerage feature; we are able to travel most anywhere for real estate choices. Note: FREL has an expense of .08%

    Our bond portfolio is overwhelmingly in investment grade bonds at this time being mainly corporate with some U.S. gov't. mixed. We don't directly hold any foreign, high yield or emerging market bonds.
    Take care,
    Catch
  • catch22: thanks for your time & reply.
    Derf
  • Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to respond. I agree that housing and real estate are sort of hand and glove. I have used Salient select income, FFSLX, for years as my real estate holding. My request was more to the housing and construction side. I have looked at Fidelity's select housing and construction but was interested in the parts that make it up. I tried lumber with Weyerhaeuser, Plum Creek, Boise Cascade, and Rayonier. I would read the newspaper and see the home builders are looking up and the wanted ads would have openings for choker setters to work on the logging crews, so the lumber mills are hiring people and selling lumber, this maybe the time to invest in them. It just doesn't seem to work that way. The other part is Home Depot, Whirlpool, Mohawk Carpets, concrete companies,and all the materials to build a house. I was curious to see if anyone had used this path. Another is home builders themselves and I know very little about them. Thanks again
  • Many of those companies and more are included in index funds like the SP500 for example. In addition, I like to have about a 5% exposure in a global real estate fund to get exposure to markets elsewhere. My GRE fund is ARYVX.
  • Nothing fancy - Vanguard REIT index, ETF, VNQ.
Sign In or Register to comment.