Definition of "Mutual funds"

Investment companies investing in investment instruments including real estate. Mutual funds are popular to investors and represent equity in a professionally managed portfolio of securities. Major benefits of investing in real estate mutual funds are:

  1. Small minimum investment. An investor with limited funds can accomplish diversification by owning many securities in the portfolio.
  2. Diversification. Each fund share provides an investor an interest in many real estate companies.
  3. Automatic reinvestment. Most funds permit reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. Funds usually do not assess a sales fee on automatic reinvestments.
  4. Automatic withdrawals. Many funds permit shareholders to withdraw funds on a periodic basis.
  5. Liquidity. An investor may redeem the shares owned.
  6. Switching. An investor may change in his investments as his objectives change.
    Mutual funds are of different types, according to structure, the fees charged, means of trading funds, and investment objectives. In open-end funds, investors buy from and sell their shares back to the fund itself. An example is Fidelity Real Estate. On the other hand, closed-end funds have a fixed number of shares outstanding, which trade among individuals in secondary markets like common stocks. All open and closed-end funds have management fees. A major point of closed-end funds is the size of discount or premium, which is the difference between their market prices and their net asset values (NAVs). Some funds sell at discount, which may make them more attractive. Funds charging sales fees are referred to as load funds. Load funds usually do not do better than no-load funds. Some analysts feel investors should buy only no-load or low-load funds. The prospectus of a real estate fund includes information as the fund's investment objectives, way of selecting securities, management and sales fees, and other costs.

image of a real estate dictionary page

Have a question or comment?

We're here to help.

*** Your email address will remain confidential.
 

 

Popular Real Estate Terms

Unfortunately, we encounter false advertising daily. False advertising refers to deceptive or misleading ads and commercials that fail to showcase a product’s or service’s ...

Impeding and restricting people in various activities based on their race, ethnic reasons, or religion now goes against US laws in effect. In the past, especially in the 1960s, ...

The construction of stone or block walls without using concrete or mortar. Drywall construction is a traditional building technique used for stone field wall construction. Newer building ...

Real estate sales contract where possession and use is provided to the buyer, but the deed is kept by the seller until the full purchase price is met whereupon the title is placed in the ...

A corporation that owns housing units and whose tenants purchase shares in the corporation equivalent to the value of their housing unit. Also called co-ops. ...

A lien on the property of a mortgagor. In most states a mortgage gives the mortgagee a lien-as opposed to the common-law practice of granting conditional title-on the house or property as ...

To confirm, ratify, verify, and accept a transaction that can be canceled. ...

Linkage of property ownership that connects the present owner to the original source of title. ...

Home inspector is the name the real estate industry calls the professional responsible for the close and thorough examination of a property. The home inspector usually is called upon ...

Popular Real Estate Questions