The pool of individuals and businesses that own or are interested in acquiring real estate investments has never been deeper. With a plethora of asset types ranging from single-family homes to downtown skyscrapers – with multi-family apartments, senior-living communities, commercial medical facilities, retail centers, manufacturing buildings and industrial warehouses (to name a few) sandwiched in-between – opportunity abounds for those willing to take the plunge. And while the terms and availability of debt financing for real estate acquisition and development have seldom been better in recent memory, access to this vast cache of opportunity rests, in large part, on the ability of the buyer to bring capital to the closing table.

Given the capital-intensive nature of real estate investing, there are few in the marketplace with both easy access to potential real estate assets and the cash (or desire) to independently acquire, construct, develop, own and/or operate those assets. As a result, it is often necessary for those with access to attractive real estate investments to raise all or a portion of the required capital for those investments from third parties ranging from friends and family to institutional investors.