State of the Private Real Estate Market Post US Election with DJ Van Keuren

Harvard's Endowment commits to a target investment range into real estate between 10% to 17% for 2016

Years ago, before the downturn I was paying very close attention to the investing allocation of my Alma Maters Endowments Investing Strategy HMC (Harvard Management Company), especially in the area of real estate. I believe that not only was Harvard a great place to understand the importance of investment allocation strategies before the downturn but even more so since the downturn. In fact, investors who are looking to enhance the performance of their investment portfolios probably won’t find a better investment model than the one used by the $37.6 billion endowment for Harvard University. The entity in charge of managing the endowment, Harvard Management Company (HMC), has accrued an impressive investment track record across its 41-year history. As of fiscal year 2015, the endowment had produced an average annual return of 12.2% – 290 basis points higher than the average 9.3% return of a typical U.S. 60/40 stock and bond portfolio. The methodology behind HMC’s success is th

Real Estate Analysis

Just a little while ago myself and my patriarch sat down with another family and began discussing real estate and our strategy. As the family office really didn't understand real estate, they started to ask questions on how we looked at deals and evaluated opportunities. Thinking back I think that a lot of the questions came from the fact that they created their wealth in the LBO market and thus understood the different nuances of businesses. Now many families created their wealth from a business but this particular family was involved in 39 different industries, thus I believe their frame of reference was a little different. Our family office created their wealth in real estate and one big part of that has to do with the degree of analytics that is used in our office. In fact, I have been asking for about 10 years why people are not more analytical about real estate decisions. All too often a family office is approached by real estate funds or operators because they work

So you want money from a family office huh?

A lot of people want to access the family office market . The reason is because they believe that it's an area which they can raise a lot of capital and often in a manner that is much easier. Although the check size might be bigger there's many many things that people don't realize when dealing with a family office. In my past I had the ability to raise capital from individuals to family offices to private equity funds, insurance companies and institutions. The biggest difference with institutions or institutional capital is that their decisions are typically made based upon parameters. They have a box or boxes in which they are to invest into. In addition, it's not their own money so because of that they are often removed from any emotions. Sure they want to do a good job but let's face it its not their own money!! Family offices, however are different. I would say that family office investors are much more like individual investors. In many ways very si

Family Office Real Estate Blog

Search This Blog