When you tuck a real estate trust or mutual fund in your investment portfolio, it will reward you with steadier and better returns than if you limited yourself to stocks and bonds.

Fresh data points to a further slowdown in the real estate industry. Separate reports show that inventories of unsold existing homes have jumped 39 percent in the year through June to 3.725 million units, and a nation-wide home sales decline of 7% in the April-June quarter this year compared with the same period in 2005.