A New Way to Invest in Real Estate

PowerShares recently rolled out a new real-estate ETF, and this one is actively managed. The Active U.S. Real Estate Fund (symbol PSR) invests in real estate investment trusts, aka REITs. The fund's managed by a team of 13 investment pros experienced in managing real estate securities.

Unlike actively managed mutual funds, ETFs must disclose their portfolios at the end of each trading day. Since most ETFs track indexes, changes to the portfolio are rare and their performance predictably moves in line with the underlying benchmark.

Some industry watchers say that disclosing trades on a daily basis takes away the advantage of an active manager (mutual fund managers are only required to disclose their holdings quarterly.)

But the fund's lead manager, Joe Rodriguez, told TheStreet.com that the structure will allow the team to avoid certain areas of the real estate market; for example, it currently focuses on commercial real estate and not single-family housing.