Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are a popular and integral part of the Singapore Exchange (SGX). With close to 50 REITs, property-related business trusts, and even REIT ETFs listed on the SGX, it’s not easy for a new investor to know what’s the best way to get started.
To help Singapore investors, particularly first-time REIT investors, Syfe, a digital wealth manager in Singapore (some call it a robo-advisory firm), has launched REIT+, Singapore’s first risk-managed REIT portfolio. This portfolio allows investors to gain access to a REIT portfolio managed by Syfe via its proprietary risk management strategy.
Before you think about whether to invest, let us first explain how this portfolio works.
How Is The Syfe REIT+ Portfolio Constructed?
Similar to most robo-advisory products, the portfolio mainly consists of two asset classes; Equity and fixed income.
The equity component of the portfolio consists of REITs. But rather than invest in all the REITs listed on SGX, Syfe REIT+ selects 20 high-quality REITs for the portfolio. The portfolio has exposure across various sectors such as industrial, retail, office, residential, and others.
For the fixed income portion, Syfe uses the ABF Singapore Bond Index Fund. This allows it to diversify into an ETF that invests in high-quality Singapore government bonds.
This also means the portfolio is denominated in Singapore Dollars (SGD), eliminating currency risk for Singapore investors.
How Is The Portfolio Being Managed?
The portfolio is managed using Syfe’s risk-managed strategy to (technically) deliver higher risk-adjusted returns.
If you are new to investing, risk-adjusted returns may be hard to understand. Let us try our best to explain this in simple terms.
REITs investing can be volatile. In certain economic conditions, such as if there are tensions in the US-China trade war or the current Covid-19 virus outbreak, the economic outlook may be pessimistic and many stocks, including REITs, may suffer short-term price volatility.
In these unfavourable conditions, the algorithm automatically reduces your market risk exposure by lowering the percentage of holdings in REITs within the Syfe REIT+ portfolio and increasing the percentage in government bonds.
Essentially, the idea here is to take on more risk by increasing REIT holdings when markets are optimistic, and to reduce risk by lowering REIT holdings when markets are volatile. However, at any point in time, your REITs with Risk Management portfolio will always have a REIT allocation of at least 50%. There is no maximum REITs allocation, which means that 100% of your portfolio can be in REIT if market conditions are extremely favourable.
Source: Syfe
The result, as you can see from the table above, is that the Syfe REIT+ portfolio enjoys lower volatility as compared to a conventional REIT portfolio.
This played out during COVID-19, where Syfe’s proprietary risk management strategy protected portfolios during the March 2020 market crash, after rebalancing. The portfolio was rebalanced on 2 March 2020 and 19 March 2020, which cushioned the impact of the market crash on Syfe REIT+, compared to the Singapore REIT20 Index.
Do note that there are two REIT portfolios you can choose from: 1) REIT with Risk Management and 2) 100% REIT.
As the name suggests, REIT with Risk Management allocates some funds into REITS and bonds, while 100% REIT allocates the funds entirely into REITs. The 100% REITs portfolio holds 20 of Singapore’s largest REITs and tracks the performance of the SGX iEdge S-REIT Leaders Index. It is designed for investors with a higher risk appetite and a longer investment horizon who want full exposure to Singapore REITs.
If you have more questions about how this works, we recommend that you speak to Syfe’s adviser, or attend one of their regularly held events.
Read Also: Investing With Syfe: 5 Things You Need To Know About Singapore’s Newest Robo-Advisor
Here are a few other notable features about Syfe’s REIT+ portfolio that you ought to know.
# 1 Income-Generating Portfolio
Similar to the reasons why many Singapore investors choose to invest in REITs, the main objective of the portfolio is to give investors a regular source of income via dividend payouts. According to Syfe, the REIT with Risk Management portfolio has generated dividend yields of 3.32% (2025), 3.81% (2024), 4.14% (2023), and 4.14% (2022). Returns for the 100% REIT portfolio generate a higher dividend yield of 5.4% (2025), 6.28% (2024), 5.01% (2023) and 5.2% (2022).
Do note that dividend yield isn’t the same as total return as it excludes capital gain/loss. Dividend yields may also be higher when prices are low. You can take a look at the past returns for the REIT with Risk Management Portfolio.
While capital gain is possible for the portfolio, investors are likely to enjoy lower long-term capital gain as compared to investing in Syfe’s other equity-focused products, such as Equity100. This is because the primary purpose of the REIT+ portfolio is income generation, as opposed to long-term capital gain.
# 2 Automatically Reinvest Your Dividends – If You Want
If you are looking to invest in the portfolio, dividend payouts will occur every quarter. However, you can also choose to automatically reinvest your dividends back into the portfolio if you prefer to let your returns compound. This is where you can enjoy the effects of compound interest and build up the value of your REIT portfolio over the long term.
# 3 You Can’t Customise Your Portfolio
Unlike its main global portfolio product, you cannot customise the equity-fixed income composition of the portfolio. Instead, as mentioned above, this equity-fixed income composition is determined by the ARI strategy, which employs risk management to reduce overall risk for the REIT+ portfolio.
Everyone who invests in this product will get the same returns.
However, while REIT+ cannot be customised, you can choose between having your portfolio invested in the Syfe REIT+ (REIT with Risk Management) portfolio or the Syfe REIT+ (100% REIT) portfolio. The 100% REIT portfolio will allocate 100% of your investments into REITs only. This means that Syfe’s risk management algorithm will not be deployed for the portfolio and you will not have any bond allocation in the portfolio.
Fees, Investment, Commitment For Syfe REIT+
Syfe charges between 0.35% to 0.65% per year, depending on your portfolio size. This all-inclusive management fee gives you free withdrawals and unlimited rebalancing. It is calculated daily and billed at the end of each month. Should you withdraw your balance before the end of the month, you pay only for the days your money was managed by Syfe.
There is no minimum investment amount nor a minimum commitment period. You can make a one-time deposit to fund your investment or choose to make regular contributions of any amount you prefer, at a frequency of your preference. You can withdraw your funds at any point in time that you want.
While there is nothing to stop experienced REITs investors from investing in this portfolio, we believe this portfolio makes the most sense for an investor who wants to get started on REITs investing in Singapore, and who are reluctant to stock pick.
If you prefer a managed approach to investing, Syfe offers portfolios for different objectives — from globally diversified Core portfolios and Equity100 for long-term growth, to REIT+ and Income+ for investors seeking income. You can also use its Cash+ solutions to put short-term funds to work while maintaining liquidity.
Find out more about the different Syfe portfolios and which may suit your financial goals.
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