REITs have become a preferred way to invest in commercial real estate thanks to their liquidity, returns, professional management teams and access to capital, according to Glenn Mueller, professor at the University of Denver.

Mueller discussed the REIT approach to real estate investment in a video interview with REIT.com in New York at REITWeek 2012: NAREIT’s Investor Forum.

“A REIT is very much like a mutual fund,” Mueller explained. “You pool a bunch of investors together, have their money under professional management and that professional management is making individual investments. In REITs, it’s in individual properties with a strategy. You get focused management, a better capital structure and a large diversification of properties in the investment, as opposed to buying one property in one city, which gives you concentration risk.”

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