Nontraded REITs have been growing in popularity lately. Through June of this year, nontraded REITs have raised $8.8 billion. These real-estate investment trusts are similar to their public counterparts, which trade like stocks and allow investors to invest in an array of commercial properties.
The downside for investors is that they are hard to unload during a real-estate downturn. Fees are higher, as much as 11% in initial sales charges to pay the retail broker, the dealer and the back-end costs of putting the REIT together. Also, these investments have become a concern of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The agency is warning that they are generally illiquid, their performance and value are difficult to understand, and their cost is too high. Disclosure is murkier than with publicly traded REITs as well.