DVDN vs REM

DVDNDKingsbarn Dividend Opportunity ETF

REMBiShares Mortgage Real Estate ETF

In short

DVDN A boutique, genuinely active take on dividend investing: at least 80% of assets in companies that paid a dividend last year, run through a value-leaning, multi-stage selection process. Small, young (2023), and priced at 0.90%.

REM Most real estate ETFs buy the landlords. REM buys the lenders: a few dozen US mortgage REITs that hold residential and commercial mortgage debt, packaged in one index-tracking ticker since 2007.

Stated mandate

DVDN The Fund seeks its objective by investing at least 80% of its assets, under normal conditions, in companies that paid a dividend during the preceding year.

REM The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. REITs that hold residential and commercial mortgages.

Why people hold it

• DVDN Stock-picked, not screen-picked: a multi-stage, value-leaning process chooses the names, with at least 80% of assets in companies that paid a dividend in the prior year.
• Straightforward plumbing: a 1940 Act US equity fund that distributes quarterly, with income sourced from the dividend payers it owns rather than an options overlay.
• The mandate is deliberately wide: any US dividend payer qualifies, so managers can tilt toward value without being boxed in by a rigid yield or dividend-growth rulebook.

• REM A genuinely different engine from the sector's giants: it tracks REITs that hold mortgages, not the equity-REIT landlords inside VNQ, SCHH or XLRE.
• Trading since 2007, so it has run through the housing crash and every rate cycle since on the same rules-based FTSE Nareit mortgage index.
• One ticker instead of hand-picking individual mortgage lenders, from the iShares shelf, moderately traded, with distributions paid quarterly.

Worth knowing

• DVDN The 0.90% expense ratio runs well above the typical US dividend-income ETF, and above big active peers such as CGDV and TDVG.
• Small asset base and light trading: spreads can be wider than in mega-cap dividend funds, which makes limit orders and trade timing matter more.
• Launched in late 2023, so the record is short, and with no published index to track, results hinge on the managers' security selection.

• REM At 0.48% a year it costs more than the typical real estate ETF (median 0.37%) and multiples of broad REIT funds like SCHH at 0.07% or VNQ at 0.13%.
• Concentrated by design: a few dozen names in one niche, so the largest mortgage lenders carry a big share of the fund.
• Not a stand-in for broad property exposure. It holds the mortgage side of real estate, so it moves with credit and rate conditions more than with rents.

Full DVDN profile⁠

Full REM profile⁠