REITs, or real estate investment trusts, and their related ETFs have long been eyed as the “next shoe to drop.” So far, though, that shoe is still up in the air. Is it still primed for a fall?

As early as 2008, stories were warning that the commercial real estate market would fall through the floor and that hundreds of billions of dollars of commercial mortgages would default, says Michael Kahn for Barron’s.