| Residential real estate | Properties designed for personal living (single-family homes, apartments, condominiums); income from rent or capital appreciation |
| Commercial real estate | Properties used for business purposes (office, retail, industrial, hotel); income primarily from lease payments |
| REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) | A publicly traded company that owns, operates, or finances income-producing real estate; must distribute 90%+ of taxable income as dividends |
| Equity REIT | A REIT that owns and operates income-producing properties; revenue primarily from rental income |
| Mortgage REIT | A REIT that invests in real estate mortgages and mortgage-backed securities; revenue primarily from interest income |
| Hybrid REIT | A REIT that combines elements of both equity and mortgage REITs, owning properties and holding mortgage positions |
| Core (real estate strategy) | Lowest risk/return strategy; invests in high-quality, fully leased, well-located properties with stable income and low leverage |
| Core-plus | Slightly higher risk than core; properties may need minor improvements or have some lease rollover risk; moderate leverage |
| Value-add | Higher risk strategy; properties require significant renovation, repositioning, or re-leasing to enhance value; higher leverage |
| Opportunistic | Highest risk/return strategy; includes ground-up development, distressed properties, and major redevelopment; highest leverage |
| Infrastructure | Long-lived physical assets providing essential services to the economy (transportation, utilities, communications) or society (hospitals, schools) |
| Public-private partnership (PPP) | A long-term contractual arrangement between a government entity and a private company to finance, build, and/or operate public infrastructure |
| Greenfield investment | Building new infrastructure from scratch; carries construction risk and demand uncertainty; highest risk/return profile |
| Brownfield investment | Acquiring existing infrastructure assets that may need expansion or improvement; lower risk than greenfield with established cash flows |
| Secondary-stage investment | Acquiring mature, fully operational infrastructure assets with stable, predictable cash flows; lowest risk among infrastructure stages |
| MLP (Master Limited Partnership) | A publicly traded limited partnership, commonly in the energy/infrastructure sector; provides tax-advantaged income distributions |
| Capitalization rate (cap rate) | NOI divided by property value; used to value income-producing real estate; analogous to an earnings yield |
| Net operating income (NOI) | Rental income minus operating expenses (excluding financing costs, depreciation, and income taxes); the key profitability metric for real estate |