A Modern Romance: Yield Hunters And Real Estate

This is a reprint of an article previously published on Forbes.com.
A yield hunter walks into a bar, sees a bunch of nice-looking men and women, but then gasps in delight. Not at the men and women, but at the other side of the room. Could they be casting agents working for HGTV or “Million Dollar Listing?” Not quite, but almost as good. It's a crowd of beautiful-yielding REITs looking for love. How can our intrepid yield hunter choose? Here’s an idea: Get to know them not as equity vehicles but based on inner beauty ... as sincere, genuine portfolios of real estate: dirt, bricks, mortar, tenants, rent checks, etc.
The inner soul versus the outer surface of a business Suppose you buy shares of Apple (AAPL). Legally speaking, you are, indeed, a part owner of the business and accordingly have a stake in whether Tim Cook continues as CEO, how the newest generation of phones should be priced and what their specs will be, etc.
Yeah, right.
The technical fact of legal ownership is just that - a hyper-technical fact - and your percentage stake is likely to round to 0% unless you extend the computation to a lot of decimal places. And the legalities of the corporate structure makes it highly unlikely you were consulted by anybody else connected with Apple about much of anything, other than which credit card you want to use when you buy one of the company’s products at an Apple Store. And, by the way, don’t even think of asking detailed questions... Read more