Yes. All financial planners are evil and think of themselves before their clients.

It's far better to recommend a traded REIT to a client that trades at a 30 to 50 percent premium to the true value of the REIT because the price has been bid up due to the low interest rate environment. I'm sure the average 20 percent decline in traded REITs last year simply because the fed announced they were going to start tapering was very good for clients. .. much better than the Cole REIT III which liquidated last year with a 10 percent gain.

Oh, and of course the fee based planner has nothing but the client's best interest at heart when they put that client in said significantly over valued traded REIT and charge them 1 to 2 percent per year in "advisory" or "management" fees so that the planner can build up a big enough pot of money to get recurring revenue year after year regardless of if you do work for the client or not.

Let's be real. Non traded REIT commissions are 7 percent, not 15 percent. Traded REITS almost trade at a significant premium to their net asset value... way more that a 10 percent load you would pay on a non traded REIT, and a "managed" fee account fee where the client is being charged 1 to 2 percent per year results in exponentially higher long term fees than a front loaded product charges.

Instead of writing about something you obviously no absolutely nothing about, why not just admit that the only real way to do planning g that has no conflict is hourly fee non investment management planning... and even then there's a conflict to take a long time to do the planning so you can bill your client more.

There's more than two sides to each story. It's not just traded reits are good and non traded bad. There's advantages and disadvantages to each. Advantage on non traded: buy closer to true NAV, more like actually owning real estate, and lower long term fees paying an up front load than 1 to two percent in perpetuity. Advantage of traded: liquidity.. and that's about it.