U.S. real estate-focused exchange-traded funds logged $2.07 billion of net outflows in July, as investors moved money out of real estate-focused funds in favor of gold- and bond-focused funds, according to data from ETF.com.

Net outflows for the real estate ETFs totaled roughly $5.06 billion in the year to date through July 31. In comparison, fixed income-focused ETFs collected $25.4 billion of net inflows in July while inflows for the commodities sector totaled $7.8 billion as investors sought safer alternatives within the market, according to ETF.com.

State Street Global Advisors Inc.'s SPDR Gold Trust logged the largest net inflows of any U.S. ETF, at $3.73 billion for July, followed by BlackRock Inc.'s iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF and iShares iBoxx USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF with net inflows of $3.48 billion and $2.77 billion, respectively.

Within the real estate sector, SSGA Funds Management Inc.'s Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund recorded the most outflows during the recent month, at $1.60 billion, followed by BlackRock Inc.'s iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF at $364.1 million.

Meanwhile, Pacer Advisors Inc.'s Pacer Benchmark Data & Infrastructure Real Estate SCTR ETF — which primarily includes communications, data center and advertising REITs — raked in $76.1 million of net inflows during the month, the most of any real estate ETF.

Vanguard Group Inc.'s Vanguard Real Estate ETF, the largest U.S. real estate ETF by assets under management, logged $10.1 million of net inflows during the month, however year-to-date net flows for the fund were negative $2.51 billion.