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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: If you were to choose between the 3 above. How would you rank them in terms of security (first and foremost) and total performance for a 3-5 year hold?

Thanks to all for your fantastic service and a very successful year in all your endeavour.
Y
Read Answer Asked by Yves on January 06, 2020
Q: Hi 5i .. i hold these REITs currently: Bpy.un (1.5% of my portfolio), car.un (3%), chp.un (2%), crt.un (1.5%), iip.un (1.7%) ... to simplify things, and diversify further, would it make sense to sell these and just buy an etf like VRE or ZRE? (for a 60 yr old div investor .. which is preferable?) ... or, is the status quo the way to go? thx!
Read Answer Asked by Patrik on September 10, 2019
Q: Good Morning,
Putting some cash to wok in my wife's TFSA, long term (20+) year hold. She is a buy and hold long term investor, looks at her portfolio once or twice a year type. Would you suggest ZRE or would you buy 3-4 REITS? I like the equal weighting of ZRE. It would be approx 10% weighting in her TFSA. Thanks again.
Read Answer Asked by Darby on September 06, 2019
Q: I am a retired conservative dividend income investor. I've held Sentry Global REIT for years (love the 6% distribution) and have been monitoring its performance as compared to ZRE and XRE. I didn't mind paying the 2.4% MER as long as it was outperforming. However, on a total return basis, Sentry has lagged significantly and I have sold it today.

With interest rates appearing to be on the decline and, more importantly, for portfolio asset allocation, I still want to have REIT exposure. I am leaning towards ZRE, due to the equal weight nature (as opposed to XRE).

I am normally a long term buy-and-hold investor. ZRE has had a good run recently, but I think the future still looks good, due to the macro environment. Your thoughts?

My target REIT allocation is 7.5%. I also have a position in CSH.

Thanks for your help...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on August 30, 2019
Q: I'm interested in REITs in general (looking for income as a new retiree), but would rather invest in an ETF than try to pick winners and losers myself. RIT appears to have a good track record and yield of 4.68%, yet net assets are just under $400M. Is this relatively small asset base cause for concern? Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Maureen on February 22, 2019
Q: I would like to buy a REIT etf for my TFSA, to capture some tax-free income, and trying to decide among XRE, ZRE and VRE. What would be your recommendation? Or is your choice none of he above but something else?
Read Answer Asked by M on January 21, 2019
Q: Good afternoon,

I am looking to add a REIT ETF to my portfolio (ZRE is my preferred), and am wondering on a historical bases if REITS right now are trading at a cheap/expensive valuation? Your website has the PE ratio at 7.8x and PB ration at 1.08x- that seems cheap? How does that compare with historical norms? Only wondering as ZRE seems to be trading not too far from it's all-time high, reached a month or two ago.

Would you expect reits to drop as interest rates rise over the coming months/years?

Thanks for the answer.
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on November 09, 2018
Q: The majority of my portfolio is invested in the TSX 60 through XIU. I am working on diversifying my portfolio and thought I would start off with the Real Estate sector and am considering ZRE.

Would you have any issues about selling about $13,000 of XIU to buy ZRE and achieve a 5% allocation in the Real Estate sector?

Also, I noticed that ZRE was dropped from the Model Income Portfolio in July 2017. Do you have any issues with ZRE specifically?
Read Answer Asked by Ray on October 22, 2018
Q: I currently don't have any REIT exposure and think I should focus on a broad ETF for more safety and diversification as opposed to some of the smaller cap REIT's I have previously held although they do have much higher yields I am concerned about the risk exposure. Would this be a good time to start a position in ZRE and/or do you have another suggestion?
Thanks,
Craig
Read Answer Asked by Craig on March 20, 2018
Q: I am retired living on dividend income. I am interested in ZWU to increase my dividend income with its yield of 6.30%.
However, I noticed that it's cash distribution has been decreasing since Jan 2017. How is its cash distribution determined? With rising interest rates, will it's cash distribution continue to decrease? What income etf yielding over 4.5% would you recommend in this market? What percent position would you recommend for income ETFs?
Read Answer Asked by Curtis on January 29, 2018
Q: I've recently sold my ZRE position and am looking for some suggestions on what to consider purchasing with the extra funds on the fixed income side of my portfolio. My equity portfolio is balanced; I am about 8 years from retirement, and am conservative in my approach. I am about 30% in laddered GICs, 5% individual bonds, 3% CPD and 5% in cash. I don't have any bond ETFs (and am concerned about the principal in a rising interest rate environment). What to do with the extra cash? More CPD? Or an international REIT? Or a bond ETF, Canadian or International? Or something else?
Read Answer Asked by Brenda on July 24, 2017
Q: I currently hold ZRE for income. If I were to replace it with 4-5 individual REITS, which ones should I pick, in addition to CSH.UN? Would ZRE or the portfolio of individual REITS be more appropriate for a long-term hold with equal consideration to distribution yield and safety of the distribution? Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Walter on July 07, 2017
Q: Hi 5i,
Just a comment on Nino’s question and your answer about the choice between paying up for a REIT ETF like ZRE/XRE versus holding 8-12 individual REITs. My choice has been the latter and I have been happy with it. Your answer suggested that rebalancing 12 holdings annually would cost $120 at $10 a pop. My experience has been that the reality is much less than that. Because the REITs tend to move as a group more than their individual movements relative to the group, in holding 8-12 decent quality REITs I haven’t had to do more than 2 or 3 rebalancing transactions in any given year. Except for a couple of extraordinary years my REITs have really been low maintenance holdings. Cheers!
Read Answer Asked by Lance on June 13, 2017