Not all REITs are equal. I mentioned one earlier in this thread, Duke Realty*, that primarily owns warehousing that the have under long term lease to Amazon and other e-commerce companies. They diversified a bit, 8-9 years back, in to small medical which has done less well during the pandemic. Is your fund tied to some cap weighted index? Indexes by and large are beneficial to the massive majority of investors. There are situations where they can be outperformed for not insignificant amounts of time with thoughtful stock picking.
*No relation to the university