Investing indirectly means purchasing shares of companies that hold large portfolios of securities on behalf of their share holders. Indirect investing is a great opportunity for those who are willing to start investing with a small amount, having no previous knowledge or experience of stock market’s ups and downs. You can decide if indirect investing is the right choice for you after examining the following features. The advantages associated with investing in property shares is that investors gain from greater liquidity since property company shares are publicly traded and the time taken to buy and sell these shares is far shorter than the time taken to buy and sell real property. Investors can create diversified property portfolios’ of property company shares at relatively low costs and in most cases, buying into diversified property portfolios in acquiring those shares. Transaction costs are lower than direct purchase. Finally since the price of publicly traded shares are known at any given time, there are no uncertainties as to the value of them. This is a contrast to direct investment with the buying and selling of real property, whereby it can take a matter of days to establish the values. Possibly the biggest advantage of indirect investment is the expertise and high standard management that comes along with investing in indirect property investment vehicles, as far as someone who knows little about property investment is concerned. Property investment companies have experts specializing in investment analysis and portfolio management and these companies will always stand a better chance for positive yields as compared to a common man who barely knows about financial markets. Furthermore another advantage with indirect investment vehicles is the opportunity for the investor to capitalise on discounts and premiums, especially in the case of close-ended funds. The net asset value of investment company’s share keep going up and down based on company’s performance and these shares are not always traded on net asset value. If sold at a price lower then net asset value, these are said to be sold at discount and if the price is higher then net asset value, they are selling at premium. This provides an opportunity to earn, even when the Net Asset Value has not changed. Neverthless there are disadvantages to investing in property shares. Firstly, the prices of property shares move up and down with the stock market, as such they are more voliatilie. Between 1970 and 1992 the annualised standard deviation of UK property shares was 27 per cent compared to 11 per cent for direct property as measured by the Jones Lang Wooton Index (Barkham and Gelthbner, 1995). It should be noted that when the impact of gearing was removed form property share prices and when the JLW series desmoothed, the standard deviations were much clooser in magnitude. Since according to finance theory, risk-adjusted returns should equalise, pro>