U.S. Real Estate ETFs Rebound

By Eric Dutram of ETF Database

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Despite their position at the epicenter of the recent mortgage meltdown, many U.S. real estate ETFs have rebounded nicely in 2010. In fact, of the 13 ETFs in the domestic Real Estate ETFdb Category only one has posted a loss for the year. This is in sharp contrast to the Global Real Estate ETFdb Category which has seen all ten of its funds post a loss on the year.

This divergence between the domestic and international real estate markets is due to several factors. Although unemployment in the U.S. remains well above its long-term average, the situation is even worse in many developed nations; Spain, for example, recently saw its unemployment rate top 20%. Because many REIT ETFs have heavy allocations to commercial and industrial real estate, demand for office space can significantly impact real estate prices.

More importantly, credit markets in the U.S. have continued to thaw, and concerns about an imminent commercial real estate collapse have eased considerably. Real estate markets in the rest of the world have not been so fortunate; chaos in Europe has hammered real property values, while deflation in Japan and bubble worries in China have weighed on Asian markets.

In the following pages, we profile four real estate ETFs that have been impacted by the recent slump: two domestic leaders and two international laggards.