With the real estate market so beat up, is it time to buy into real estate investment trusts?

As frightening as stocks were during the bear market, the performance of real estate investment trusts was even scarier.

REITs are companies that invest in real estate and must pay out most of their profits to shareholders, hence, the high yields.

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index plunged 55 percent from October 9, 2007, through March 9 of this year. The MSCI U.S. REIT index started its collapse eight months earlier, and from peak to trough it plummeted 74 percent.

Full story is available on NJ.com