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

An insurance company or underwriter. An insurance policy is a legal instrument assuming the risk of loss for stated perils to real property in exchange for insurance premiums paid. ...

Map which documents the area, perimeter location, dimensions, and other data relating to land for purposes of assessing annual real estate taxes. ...

To define access rights, we must understand the need for access rights. There are several reasons for using access rights for any property; some are necessary and granted with little to no ...

Type of mortgage, which is not based on a constant interest rate. ...

The term’s balance sheet definition can be described as a financial statement that a company uses to report its liabilities, assets, and shareholders’ equity at a given time. A ...

In a principal gent transaction or contract where a third party knows the name of the principal the agent represents. This is a typical setting in real estate situations. In this ...

Property taken over by the government because the owner has failed to pay taxes on it. The property may revert back to the owner when the taxes are paid. If not, the government may sell the ...

Percentage of rental property that is unoccupied. For example, a vacancy rate of 25% means that 25% of the rental unites are nor being used. Idle space can cause a significant cash drain ...

Grades have various definitions related to real estate and surveying land. Let’s have a look at the most common meanings of grades you’ll encounter in everyday life! Grades ...

Popular Real Estate Questions