REITs — the easiest way to own real estate
A REIT is a publicly traded company that owns real estate. By US tax law it must distribute 90% of taxable income as dividends. You buy shares like any stock in any brokerage account — instant, liquid, low-minimum real estate exposure.
There are public REITs covering every property type: apartments (Equity Residential, AvalonBay), industrial (Prologis — the global leader), retail (Simon, Realty Income), self-storage (Public Storage, Extra Space), healthcare (Welltower, Ventas), data centers (Digital Realty, Equinix), and more.
Advantages: fully liquid (sell any day), $100 buys you in, professional management, no operating work, tax-efficient inside retirement accounts. Disadvantages: trades like a stock so short-term volatility is real, most REIT dividends are taxed as ordinary income rather than qualified dividends (so they're less efficient in taxable accounts).
For most regular investors, a broad REIT ETF (VNQ from Vanguard, SCHH from Schwab, USRT from iShares) held inside a retirement account is the simplest, lowest-cost, most tax-efficient way to have real estate exposure. Hard to beat with anything more complicated.