🏠

REITs — real estate without buying a house

Buy a share, collect rent (sort of).

The idea

Want to own real estate without buying a whole house? A REIT lets you do exactly that. It's a company that owns lots of buildings — apartments, stores, warehouses — and when you buy a share, you own a tiny piece of all of them. Even better, REITs share most of their rent money with owners as dividends. 🏠

Words to know

REIT: A company that owns lots of real estate; buying a share gives you a tiny piece of all of it.
Dividend: Cash paid to owners — REITs must pay out most of their rent income this way.
VNQ: A fund holding hundreds of REITs in one ticker — real estate in a single basket.
The 90% rule: REITs must pay out at least 90% of their income as dividends, so owners get steady cash.

Try it — no account needed

You want to invest in real estate but you only have $200 and you're 14. What can you actually do?

In the full lesson

1Make the call

Vine has 107 lessons like this one, each written three ways so a 7-year-old and a 17-year-old both get a version that fits.

Practice with real prices

Real market data, pretend money. Learn how investing actually works without risking a cent.

Start free