szehau's weblog

Life, Internet, Software, Gadgets, Programming and Investments

REIT – Real Estate Investment Trust

Recently, the investment term “REITs” come across my mind. I keep seeing news about REITs in newspaper, forums and personal blogs. A REIT or real estate investment trust is a real estate company that offers common shares to the public.

What is REIT? According to Wikipedia:

A Real Estate Investment Trust or REIT (pronounced /ˈriːt/) is a tax designation for a corporation investing in real estate that reduces or eliminates corporate income taxes. In return, REITs are required to distribute 90% of their income, which may be taxable, into the hands of the investors. The REIT structure was designed to provide a similar structure for investment in real estate as mutual funds provide for investment in stocks.

In Malaysia, REIT is a little bit different (source).

  • 1. Investors’ dividends will be taxed at investors’ books.
  • 2. Non-residents’ dividends will be taxed at 28%. It is an upfront and final withholding tax.
  • 3. There are NO explicit requirement of minimum payout ratio in the guidelines.

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Maybankard Ezy Cheque – Will You Take the Offer?

I received a Maybankard Ezy Cheque yesterday. It is a cheque with amount of RM2,000. You can get extra cash by simply bank in the cheque.

There is no document to fill in, no waiting approval and 0% interest-free for six months. You will need to pay back (by charging to your credit card) the money within 6 months, RM333.33 each month.

It is an interest-free for the installments but you will need to pay the cash advance fee which is RM77.60 (3.88%). Will you take that offer?

Personally I think it is not worth to take it unless you need the money urgently. The cash advance fee for credit card normally is around 18% p.a. So it is consider cheaper to take the Ezy Cheque than to take credit card’s cash advance.

If the cash advance fee is 2% or less, I think I will take it because I can use the money to invest in stock market or mutual funds, where I think I will get a better return on the investment (more than 2%).

What Have You Done to Achieve Financial Freedom?

I think most people may have a same dream in their life – to achieve financial freedom. I am having the same dream too.

Financial freedom means that you are in control of your money, rather than it controlling everything you do. It’s a long journey to achieve freedom: learn, fail, learn and fail… the only success.

What have you done to achieve financial freedom?

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