Tag Archives: REITs

Checking Up on Alice—Portfolio Review

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Four Investments, 1997-2012

Last weekend TV viewers watched the beginning of the third season of BBC’s Downton Abbey, a story about an aristocratic family in England in the 1920s. Sir Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, with his family and staff, live on investments in a splendid castle.

Last July readers of this blog met Alice, a model retiree, who also lives on investments and manages her portfolio of four different index mutual funds. Moreover, Alice has Social Security and a pension, both of which postdate Lord Grantham. Continue reading →

Rounding Out Your Retirement Portfolio

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Last week we added Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) to a retirement portfolio, and this week we add international investments. The completed portfolio will now have domestic stocks, domestic bonds, REITs, and international stocks. Just these four investments can carry a retiree a long way into efficient, reasonably stable returns.

Why international investments? Diversification and growth are the best answers. Fifty years ago the United States dominated the world of investment opportunities, but today many countries have growing economies, well-run innovative companies, and good opportunities for investing. Continue reading →

Invest in REITs As Well As Stocks and Bonds

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Good investment literature always recommends diversification. It counsels investors to forget about trying to pick the next Apple or Microsoft. That is a guessing game, and the odds are against small investors. Here at Later Living, I have followed the literature and used example portfolios consisting of broadly diversified stock and bond index funds. Today I will include real estate, or REITs, in the retirement portfolio.

REITs are real estate investment trusts, and they owe their modern form to legislation enacted in 1960 and subsequently modified. REITs provide investors easy ways to participate in investments like apartments, office buildings, shopping centers, timberland, and others types of income-producing real estate. Continue reading →