RIET vs XLRE

RIETCHoya Capital High Dividend Yield ETF

XLREAState Street Real Estate Select Sector SPDR ETF

In short

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.

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

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

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

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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 RIET profile⁠

Full XLRE profile⁠