IYR is among the first US real estate ETFs and has been a stalwart of the space. The fund tracks a typical broad-based real estate index and captures much of the real estate space including REITs and firms investing directly or indirectly in real estate through development, management, or ownership, including property agencies. The fund may invest in stocks of all capitalization that are trading on major US exchanges. As is the case with other REIT ETFs, distributions from the fund are taxed as ordinary income. Effective Jan. 25, 2021 the fund followed the capped version of its underlying index the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index Capped Index. The strategy stays the same but a capping methodology is applied at the quarterly rebalance. This limits the weight of any single issuer to a maximum of 10% and the aggregate weight of all issuers that individually exceed 4.50% of the index weight to maximum of 22.50%.
