pros: you can invest a relatively small amount of money, much smaller than investing in hard property.

there are various flavors to choose from: malls, apartments, hospitals, office buildings, storage sheds, motels, and I have no idea how many more.

That about does it for the pros. Now for the cons

Cons: you have to pay taxes at the full tax rate on distributions. Whereas if you own hard real estate, there are numerous tax advantages you can take advantage of.

The management of the REIT may not be as good as you might have hoped. In fact they might even be bad.

REIT’s are much more liquid. If you decide you need your money now you can get out of a REIT. If you actually own the property your cash is tied up until the property sells. I say own REIT’s instead of real rental property. The guys that run them are smart and they have people to do all the tedious work that is involved with rentals. I think owning a REIT is a safer bet unless you have experience as a landlord and know what you are doing. Both can make you money. As a bonus a REIT won’t call you in the middle of the night to fix a toilet.