I wrestled with the ETF vs. Index mutual fund debate too, but I realized that pretty much each Vanguard ETF has an index fund equivalent with the same expense ratio if you invest at least $10,000 to get Admiral Shares. For example, VFINX: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsSnapshot?FundId=0040&#....
At this point, there are only two differences between the two:
1) You can't day trade index funds
2) You can't auto invest in ETFs
Auto investing was really important to me for dollar cost averaging, so I decided to go with index funds rather than ETFs in the end.
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I wrestled with the ETF vs. Index mutual fund debate too, but I realized that pretty much each Vanguard ETF has an index fund equivalent with the same expense ratio if you invest at least $10,000 to get Admiral Shares. For example, VFINX: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsSnapshot?FundId=0040&#....
At this point, there are only two differences between the two: 1) You can't day trade index funds 2) You can't auto invest in ETFs
Auto investing was really important to me for dollar cost averaging, so I decided to go with index funds rather than ETFs in the end.
By the way, Vanguard does have index funds for REITs: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0123&...