Would you hold an mREIT if you already own the buildings

I run a handful of small multifamily units and the rent covers the debt with room to spare, so the question of where the surplus goes comes up every quarter.

The case for putting some into mREITs is that I'd be on the other side of the trade I'm already in. I owe mortgage money. An mREIT owns mortgage money. When rates rise my refinance gets worse, and the mortgage side of the business is supposed to be earning on a wider or narrower spread depending on the curve. It also pays out quarterly in a way my buildings don't, since my cash flow arrives in dribs and gets eaten by a water heater.

The case against is that it's still real estate credit, and if property values in my market slide far enough that my equity is in trouble, the loans backing the mREIT portfolio are secured by properties in the same national market. That's one exposure wearing two outfits, not two exposures. Someone who owns no property at all might get real diversification from mortgage paper. Someone who already owns four buildings arguably just gets more of what they have, with added rate sensitivity and borrowed money at the fund level they don't control.

I genuinely don't know which reading is right for someone in my position, and I suspect it depends on whether you think property values and mortgage credit performance move together closely enough to matter. Vote and tell me what I'm missing.