Family offices pool billions to buy real estate directly

Realm, a multifamily-office platform, oversees more than $12 billion in client money. Its pitch: stop trying to buy commercial real estate alone. CEO Travis King told CNBC's Property Play newsletter that pooled capital, relationships, and industry knowledge make the group a better investor than any single family. “We are better investors collectively than we would be individually,” he said.

The typical Realm family has about $200 million in investable assets. That is enough to matter in a deal but not enough to justify a dedicated real estate staff. King argues the platform supplies deal flow across property types and geographies, something a single office would struggle to replicate.

Institutional investors used to put a low-single-digit share of their portfolios into real estate. Some now put 10% or more in. Family offices have not followed, though the desire is there. The obstacle is execution: buying property directly is time-intensive and demands a large in-house team. Multifamily offices are the workaround, letting families share the cost of expertise and take larger, more diversified positions than they could alone.

King calls direct real estate access for families “the next horizon.” The platform gives the wealthiest families a path into an asset class that has been elusive. The trade-off is implicit: a family’s real estate strategy becomes the platform’s strategy. A family that signs up is, in effect, outsourcing its real estate judgment. That may be the price of entry.