Real Estate ETFs Emerge as a Bet on Supply-Chain Mess
- BlackRock, Vanguard real-estate ETFs seeing a flood of cash
- Funds have heavy exposure to data centers as well as housing
There are a bunch of reasons to be investing in U.S. real estate right now. A housing shortage? That’s a good one. Low interest rates? That’s there too. The need for more data storage and a fix to the global supply-chain disaster? Bet you didn’t see that coming.
Real estate exchange-traded funds are raking in cash. The $6.2 billion iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF, or IYR, posted $1.3 billion of inflows last week, making it the second biggest gainer among ETFs after State Street’s S&P 500 behemoth, or SPY, and marking its biggest weekly haul ever. Not to be outdone, the $41.4 billion Vanguard Real Estate ETF, ticker VNQ, also was on the leaderboard, pulling in $338 million. The fund has been hot for a little while, as it posted $1.2 billion of inflows in May, its best month since March 2019.