FREL vs RIET

FRELAFidelity MSCI Real Estate Index ETF

RIETCHoya Capital High Dividend Yield ETF

In short

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.

RIET Real estate, sorted by the paycheck. RIET tracks Hoya Capital's own high dividend yield index, roughly 100 US real estate names, and distributes monthly. Trading since 2021.

Stated mandate

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

RIET The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Hoya Capital High Dividend Yield Index.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• RIET The index screens on dividend yield rather than company size, so the basket is built around payout first. A genuinely different starting point in a corner full of cap-weighted trackers.
• Distributions arrive monthly, so income shows up on a bill-paying rhythm instead of in quarterly lumps.
• Roughly 100 holdings spread the risk, so one landlord's bad quarter does not steer the whole fund. The portfolio also stays tightly aligned with the index it promises to follow.

Worth knowing

• 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.

• RIET At 0.50% a year, it costs more than the typical US real estate ETF and several times what cap-weighted staples charge: SCHH at 0.07%, VNQ at 0.13%.
• Assets and trading volume are modest next to the category's giants, which tends to mean wider bid-ask spreads on the way in and out.
• Launched in 2021, so the track record does not yet cover a full rate-and-property cycle. Among the two dozen broad US real estate funds we track, it sits in the lower half overall.

Full FREL profile⁠

Full RIET profile⁠