Diversify with Private Real Estate Funds
Given the uncertainty and volatility in financial markets over the past several years, investors have become more strategic about their cash investment allocations and strategies.
While they are still looking for attractive income and growth focused investments, they are looking for solutions that are historically less correlated to equity markets and, as a result, more diversified.
To strive to meet these demands, we strategize with clients to build custom portfolios that are designed to attempt to mitigate overall portfolio risk, reduce volatility, and increase passive income and growth.
Cash Investment Opportunities
Accredited real estate investors are in a unique position to diversify their investment strategy through private real estate funds. We offer a range of options to fit your circumstances, lifestyle needs, and financial objectives.
- Preferred Equity Offerings
- Real Estate Investment Trusts
- Interval Funds
- Other Income Funds
Preferred Equity Options
Preferred equity, or preferred stock, is often considered a hybrid security. While it shares many characteristics with debt instruments, it also offers investors the opportunity to seek to mitigate risk. Unlike common equity, preferred equity investors have the possibility of receiving a fixed annual return on their initial investment, and the potential for cash flow distributions are received prior to common stock shareholders. These options are attractive to investors as they target higher-fixed income payments, and shareholders have priority claim over dividends and liquidation proceeds if a company defaults.
Companies leverage preferred equity as a unique form to finance real estate investments or developments. There are different types of preferred equity, offering investors the potential for varying returns and risks. The most common include cumulative, callable, convertible, participating, and adjustable-rate preferred stock (ARPS).
Real Estate Investment Trusts
A real estate investment trust, or REIT, is a corporation that owns and/or manages income-producing commercial real estate. When individuals buy a real estate investment trust (REIT) share, they are purchasing a share of the company that owns and manages the rental property. Shares of publicly traded REITs can be purchased and sold as easily as other stocks, even on a daily basis, thereby providing significant liquidity to investors.
Many types of REITs exist. Most focus on a specific product type (e.g., retail, hospitality, multifamily housing, senior living facilities, student housing, office space, self-storage, industrial, and so on) or geography (e.g., commercial real estate in the Northeast vs. Southwest).
Interval Funds
An interval fund is a type of closed-end fund that offers liquidity to investors at stated intervals – typically quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. This means investors can sell a portion of their shares at regular intervals at a price based on the fund’s net asset value. However, there is no guarantee that investors can redeem their shares during a given redemption period. As such, interval funds should generally be treated as long-term investments that, in turn, will usually offer the potential for an illiquidity premium in exchange.
Interval funds can be used to invest in many securities and asset classes, including, but not limited to, real estate. A single interval fund is not limited to investing in a single asset class; in fact, it can invest in various assets as a means of diversifying its holdings.
Other Income Funds
A real estate income fund is a specific subset of funds that focuses exclusively on investing in income-generating real estate. Real estate income funds provide another entry point for those looking to invest cash in large commercial real estate portfolios. Real estate income funds are particularly appealing to retail investors who want to own institutional-quality real estate that would otherwise be out of reach to them. A real estate income fund pools capital from many investors, and then the fund’s sponsor oversees all of the fund’s activities – from due diligence and underwriting to property renovations, stabilization, ongoing management, and eventually disposition. Depending on the nature of a real estate income fund, the fund can have different investment minimums as well as lengthy hold periods, and, therefore, the capital invested should be considered illiquid during that hold period.
There are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of different types of investment funds, including equity funds, bond funds, money market funds, mutual funds, and hedge funds.
Opportunity Zone Disclosures
- Opportunity Zones (“OZ”) are speculative. OZs are newly formed entities with no operating history. There’s no assurance of investment return, property appreciation, or profits. The ability to resell the fund’s underlying assets is not guaranteed. Investing in OZ funds may involve higher risk than investing in other established real estate offerings.
- Long-term. OZ funds are illiquid and return of capital and realization of gains, if any, from an investment will generally occur only upon partial or complete disposition or refinancing of such investments.
- Limited secondary market. Although secondary markets may provide a liquidity option in limited circumstances, the amount you will receive is typically reduced.
- Difficult valuation assessment. The portfolio holdings in OZ funds may be difficult to value. As such, market prices for most of a fund’s holdings will not be readily available.
- Default consequences. Meeting capital calls to provide pledged capital is a contractual obligation of each investor. Failure to meet this requirement in a timely manner could have adverse consequences including forfeiture of your interest in the fund.
- Leverage. OZ funds may use leverage in connection with investments or participate in investments with highly leveraged structures. Leverage involves a high degree of risk and increases the exposure of the investments to factors such as rising interest rates, downturns in the economy, or deterioration in the condition of the assets underlying the investments.
- Unregistered. The regulatory protections of the Investment Company Act of 1940 are not available with unregistered securities.
- Regulation. It is possible, due to tax, regulatory, or investment decisions, that a fund, or its investors, are unable to realize any tax benefits. Evaluate the merits of the underlying investment and do not solely invest in an OZ fund for any potential tax advantage.