DESK vs FREL

DESKFVanEck Office and Commercial REIT ETF

FRELAFidelity MSCI Real Estate Index ETF

In short

DESK Office towers, isolated. DESK tracks an index of US office and commercial REITs, roughly two dozen landlords, so the work-from-home debate comes through undiluted instead of buried in a broad property fund.

FREL Fidelity's take on US real estate: one index, about 150 property stocks, and a 0.08% fee against a 0.37% category median. Cheap beta on landlords, and one of the strongest implementations in its peer group.

Stated mandate

DESK DESK is designed to closely follow, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of an index representing U.S. office and commercial REITs.

FREL The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the MSCI USA IMI Real Estate Index.

Why people hold it

• DESK Broad REIT funds bury offices among warehouses, cell towers and data centers. DESK's index is built only from US-listed office and commercial REITs, so the exposure stays undiluted.vaneck.com
• At 0.51%, the fee sits right at the median for real estate ETFs we grade and well under niche peers like CLIM at 0.90%.
• Plain index plumbing from a house that has run thematic REIT funds for years (see MORT): published index, roughly two dozen names, quarterly distributions.

• FREL 0.08% a year against a 0.37% median for US real estate funds. Among the category's leaders, only SCHH runs cheaper, and only by a basis point.
• Tracks the MSCI USA IMI Real Estate Index tightly, with very little drift from the benchmark it promises to follow.
• Plain vanilla plumbing: a 1940 Act index fund holding about 150 US real estate stocks. No leverage, no options overlay, cash paid out quarterly.
• Trading since 2015 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund with Fidelity's index desk behind it.

Worth knowing

• DESK One property type, roughly two dozen holdings. Office rent and vacancy news lands on the whole portfolio at once, with no other REIT sectors to soften it.
• A small, thinly traded fund launched in 2023. Wider bid-ask spreads and less depth on the screen come with the territory.
• Against the real estate ETFs we cover, it lands in the lower half, mostly on concentration and the volatility that a single-sector sleeve carries.

• FREL One sector, one country. US real estate can move on its own schedule for long stretches, and this fund rides every bit of that.
• Moderately traded rather than a volume leader in the category, which can show up as wider bid-ask spreads.
• Crowded shelf. SCHH, VNQ, USRT and XLRE cover similar ground at similar prices, so the real difference is which index each one follows.

Full DESK profile⁠

Full FREL profile⁠