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cowboy1
Need advice on Inland-Western private reit purchased at inception Oct 03.Should I liquidate shares and pay off mortgage or hope that maybe shares will trade on a public market some day ??? Is anyone familiar with this particular reit ?? Having owned shares and reinvesting dividends on original sum of $150,000.00 it has accumulated to $185,000.00. Am tempted to buy bank cd or bonds. Please help....

Rookie_Investor
Cowboy,
Disclaimer: I've never heard of this REIT and I am not a professional advisor by any stretch of my imagination (hence my log-in name)... so feel free to totally disregard my ramblings, but here's how I see it.
There are probably a few different posts on this site where you can read about REITS. Here are a couple posts that I have read and participated in that discuss REITS. In particular, I found rogermexico's post interesting (its in this first link below). I feel similarly weary of being invested in REITS at this time due to housing market conditions and interest rates (as you'll see in the second link below).
Regarding the REIT you own, I'm curious - has the value leveled off or slightly declined in the past 3-6 months? Personally I'd take my profits now while they're there for the taking. Especially if there's a chance you won't be able to trade/sell it without considerable work or expense (since its private), or if you have to go through the advisor who is now out of business (get it done now while you still have contact with him/her).
Take a quick read of the posts linked below, then cruise around this site for other posts on the subject (and maybe reprint your question in another area, like Funds and/or Retirement for more exposure to those who might have a more knowledgeable opinion).
http://forums.kiplinger.com/showthread.php?t=6912
http://forums.kiplinger.com/showthread.php?t=7070

Regarding paying off your mortgage, there are also some posts on this site with opinions about that. Whether you pay it off early or not depends on a lot of things really, but usually the most prevelant in the decision-making process is the person's emotional piece of mind that "now the house is all mine and the bank can take it away". Of course, since the Depression when a lot of home and farm loans were called in by the banks and people lost their homes, numerous laws & regulations have been written which make it unlikely your home will be taken away by the bank unless you default on payments, etc. If your mortgage interest rate is relatively low and you haven't had a problem making the payments up until now, you might be better off to invest these dividends/capital gains into a mix of mutual funds that will earn you more in returns than you're paying in interest on the mortage. Just a thought.

Good luck.
Rookie