It has been my understanding that installment shares usually run for a year at a time and that these can then be rolled over if you choose not to pay the final installment, by its due date. I have however noticed, that you can now purchase installment shares on some of the property stocks such as Growthpoint and Redefine which run until 2016, which means that you only have to pay the final installment in 9 years time! This almost seems to be a no brainer to buy (if you want to invest in property stocks) as you only pay a portion of the share now, receive almost all the benefits of a normal share, specifically dividends/interest, and then only have pay the balance of the share in 9 years. In nine years time, this balance would be an insignificant amount! You would also think that in 9 years time the value of a share such as Growthpoint, would be quite significant as well... Have I missed something here? Why would these Installments being running for such a long time? I look forward to anyone's input....