And Pettee believes his fund offers an alternative to the iShares Residential Real Estate ETF (REZ), a 12-year-old product with assets of roughly $423 million and an expense ratio of 0.48 percent. REZ tracks an index composed of U.S. residential, healthcare and self-storage real estate equities.
HOMZ has an expense ratio of 0.45 percent, which Pettee says makes it competitive with the above-mentioned funds.
Hoya Capital hasn’t reinvented the wheel, but it has added a different spoke by including the tech-driven and online aspects of residential real estate.
That said, housing is a notoriously cyclical industry. While the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF is up 16.5 percent this year and the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF has gained almost 14 percent, these funds sank roughly 26 percent and 31 percent last year, respectively. And both funds are under water from when they began trading 13 years ago during the tail end of the housing bubble that was soon to burst.
The REZ fund has been more of a steady Eddie product, with a total gain of about 25 percent since it launched in 2007. Then again, it has spread its bets to other real estate sectors beyond housing.