U.S. investors looking abroad for real estate holdings

U.S. investors looking abroad for real estate holdings
Investing in real estate once meant owning rental property or buying shares in a U.S.-based real estate investment trust. Today, it increasingly means putting money in a REIT trading in Singapore or buying a pied-a-terre in a refurbished medieval village in northern Italy.

These days, real estate investing is an international proposition. Nearly a score of global real estate mutual funds have launched in the United States in the last two years, more than doubling in number. They now manage some $16.8 billion collectively, with more than $5.8 billion in new money flowing in this year alone, according to investment researcher Morningstar Inc.

Earlier this month, the American Stock Exchange listed its second international real estate exchange-traded fund in the last six months, the WisdomTree International Real Estate fund. And last summer, private bank Northern Trust Corp. launched the first international real estate index fund, Northern Global Real Estate Index, which now has more than $1 billion in assets.