DESK vs XLRE

DESKFVanEck Office and Commercial REIT ETF

XLREAState Street Real Estate Select Sector SPDR 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.

XLRE The S&P 500's landlords in one ticker: about 30 large-cap real estate companies, mortgage REITs excluded, for 0.08% a year. It launched in 2015, before real estate was even its own market sector.

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.

XLRE The fund seeks to provide investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Real Estate Select Sector Index, representing the real estate sector of the S&P 500 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.

• XLRE 0.08% a year sits at the floor of the real estate peer group, where the median fund charges several times more.
• Clean mandate: S&P 500 real estate management, development and equity REITs, with mortgage REITs left out, so no mortgage paper rides along in a property fund.ssga.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the most actively traded names in its category, which usually shows up as tight spreads when you click buy.
• Running since 2015, arriving before S&P and MSCI split real estate out as its own sector in 2016. Pays quarterly, and ranks among the stronger builds in a crowded lineup.reit.com

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.

• XLRE About 30 holdings, so the largest positions carry real weight and one company's stumble is felt across the fund.
• The S&P 500 sets the universe, so REITs that never reach large-cap index status stay outside the portfolio.ssga.comsec.gov
• This is one slice of the market, moving with the property cycle rather than blending into a broad index.

Full DESK profile⁠

Full XLRE profile⁠