Any Halal REIT or ETF?

Assalam aleykum! Could anyone share some halal REIT or ETF? Thanks.

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Walaikumus salaam and welcome!

The following shariah compliant ETFs are available for US investors:

  • $SPUS - SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia Industry Exclusions ETF
  • $SPSK - SP Funds Dow Jones Global Sukuk ETF
  • $SPRE - SP Funds S&P Global REIT Sharia ETF
  • $HLAL - Wahed FTSE USA Shariah ETF
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Regarding Wahed , I found that one of their holders was Macy (M) which clearly doesn’t qualify for halal stock as it has large debt/Market cap .

There is a new ETF in Canada.
Wealthsimple Shariah World Equity Index ETF (WSHR)

And these 3 from iShares. I believe UK listed
ISDU
ISDW
ISDE

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WAS Saad
I researched SPRE and is includes some REIT’s that according to zoya are not shariah compliant
What is the best REIT in your opinion

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Do you know which REITs are not compliant. I believe they use another provider and depending on the rule set, the compliance may differ.

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For REITs, the total assets are used as the denominator. This is also the case with the SPRE ETF.
Always read through the screening criteria for SP’s ETFs.
This has to do with the fact that with REITs it is the wealth that counts and not the market capitalization. REITs are also valued differently than normal stocks.
Equity REITs can also be Sharia-compliant, the others invest in mortgage loans.

On page 12 you can read the screening criteria for the SPRE ETF

Screening Criteria SPRE ETF

SPRE has AMT and PLD which according to Zoya are not compliant
For this reason I did not buy SPRE

Curious about the compliance surrounding AMT and PLD. I’m guessing the folks behind SPRE are using a screening criteria different from Zoya/AAOIFI? I tried looking through their website (SPRE | SP FUNDS) but I’m not well-versed enough to understand. So would definitely like to learn more by watching this thread’s progress.

AMT is very close to compliant. One more issue i have with the AAOIFI standard which measures cash and debt compliance separately. It should be on a ‘net’ basis. So Debt - Cash and then check the 30% or 33% rule.

If you do that, AMT may be compliant depends if you use 33% or not.

Interesting that PLD has 15% of its revenue as non compliant. I have not looked at their 10-K to check the segment breakdown, which Team Zoya probably has.

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

I had a quick look through these and they look compliant. Has anyone found anything to suggest they are not?

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Salam Aleykum!

Have you looked into Ameen Housing Co-op? I don’t know much about REITs to say if it qualifies as such, but it does allow you to invest in real estate through it. Ameen Housing current model is helping people buy homes in California. That is not to say they won’t expand beyond California in the future. But I believe they do allow folks outside of California to invest. It is worth a look, I think –https://www.ameenhousing.com/

And yeah full disclosure – I do invest with them.

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Wa Alaikum As-Salam,

Ameen Housing is local to me and I invest in it as well. One issue I have is their very bad customer service. They have (I think more than 50 houses or even more) but they do run it on volunteer basis. Earlier this year I wanted to get an answer about 1099 and every time they send me a canned answer.

Salam Usman, I agree, their customer service is a bit lacking. I find myself having to call and email at least a couple of times before things get done. But it is due to their lack of manpower rather than attitude. But it seems that they are fully aware of this issue.

In either case I am sure this will come up in the general body meeting that is coming up. Really hoping there is some news about an online portal for their members to access and to automate some basic transactions. That should help mitigate some of the issues.

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Thanks @saad these are the ETFs I also came up with after doing the research :grinning:

About debt being treated separately from cash, that makes sense Islamically because the issue is how much interest based debt a company has. A company can be more halal by paying off such debts if it could, because less of their money would be going to interest going forward.

About AMT specifically they currently slightly exceed 30%, and my understanding is SP funds rebalances every month, so if it stayed over 30% by next month I would expect it drops from SPRE. IIUC, someone who knows otherwise can correct me.

PotlatchDeltic $PCH is a REIT, currently shariah-compliant in Zoya.

Curious with halal REIT that pays good dividend, preferably not annually payout.
Anyone has good tickers for me to check ?

Rezk,

All the SP ETFs seem to use same Shariah screening criteria using total assets (and not Market Cap). See below.

• Debt is less than 33.333% of total assets;
• Cash and interest-bearing items are less than 33.333% of total assets;
• Accounts receivable and cash are less than 50% of total assets; and
• Total interest and non-compliant activities income are less than 5% of total revenue

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Yes that’s true. This is often the case with Islamic ETFs. The index uses market capitalization, but the ETF uses total assets.

However, I am concerned with the ETFs of SP funds not too much, since I can not trade these.