Friday, 5 August 2011

Investing In Singapore REITs For Passive Income

By Chris Lee


Investing in REITs is one of the easiest and cheapest way to get involved in property investing. In fact, it is one investing instrument that can be easily leveraged if you know how.

Investing in REITs gives you the advantage of investing in PRIME real estate like hotels, hospitals, commercial buildings with very little money down... sometimes as low as just $400. That is to say, if you think that investing in properties is too expensive, then, you couldn't be more wrong when you know more about REITs.

The thing about REITs is that, though it may not give you the best ROI as compared to stocks, it is probably one of the best ways to get passive income for life. In fact, in Singapore, 90% of the rental fees collected in the commercial buildings are, by law, to be distributed back to the share holders.

So... what exactly is a REIT ?

The acronym REIT stands for "real estate investment trust," also called "real estate stock," for short. It is a kind of investment that is similar to mutual funds, in the sense that it uses the pooled funds of investors to invest in large-scale commercial real estate.

In other words, a REIT investor combines his fund with other investors so that the funds are large enough to invest in bigger and more prestige estates.

There are basically 3 different groups of people in a REIT setup. A REIT manager who oversees the assets of the scheme, The trustee who makes sure the REIT manager performs his job, and the unit holder, who serves as the public stakeholders.

Now, if you are worried about how to manage your investment when it comes to property investing, then, you might want to consider looking at REITs as it is more or less a hands free investment. The only thing is, of course, you must see if your building is attracting enough business so that the rental fees can be collected and pass back to you as dividends.




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