You can still apply for Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to get $2,000 a month if you haven’t already. However, eventually, the benefits will come to an end and there’s no guarantee that work will be readily available when the COVID-19 crisis ends.

Here’s how you can get $2,000 (or more) per month permanently.

Unless you think brick-and-mortar retailers and offices are dead, now is a great time to buy depressed real estate investment trusts (REITs) in these sectors because of the COVID-19 impacts.

For example, during this COVID-19 pandemic, I bought positions in Brookfield Property Partners  (TSX:BPY.UN)(NASDAQ:BPY) / Brookfield Property REIT (NASDAQ:BPYU), H&R REIT (TSX:HR.UN), SmartCentres REIT (TSX:SRU.UN), and STORE Capital Corp (NYSE:STOR).

Near-term Risk Exists in REITs, As Does Long-term Opportunity!

Don’t get me wrong. In the near term, there’s indeed high risk. These REITs that have large retail or office exposure can continue to be depressed and slash their dividends.

H&R REIT only collected 50% of its retail rents but 80% of its total rents in May. Enclosed malls are doing the worst during the pandemic as other than essential services tenants like grocery stores, others had to be shut down at one point or another to keep the public safe.

In April, I suspected that H&R REIT could cut its cash distribution in half. And in fact, it cut its cash distribution by 50% in May. That said, the stock still offers a nice yield of 7.1% at CAD$9.70 per unit. 

I still believe H&R REIT can trade at CAD$19 per share in the future. That’s almost a double! As well, it’ll be able to restore its cash distribution to higher levels in a normalized market. Meanwhile, buyers today get paid a handsome passive income to wait.