Just under three years ago we created Wealth Management Real Estate as an evolution of National Real Estate Investor. Our goal was to focus on the intersection of wealth management and real estate investment. It was a move away from traditional coverage of the commercial real estate industry, an area rife with robust competitors including Bisnow, The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, Commercial Property Executive, GlobeSt.com, PERE and Connect CRE.
Our mission meant focusing less on the trends in the commercial real estate space and more on how the wealth channel accessed the real estate investment world. We’ve seen an increased interest by qualified purchasers, accredited investors and even non-accredited investors in commercial real estate. But in the wealth management world we have found that real estate investment is considered part of a bigger bucket of alternatives rather than a discrete category unto itself.
According to surveys fielded through WMIQ, the research arm of WealthManagement.com, which aligns with industry research from other sources, advisors are increasing their use of alternative investments. For example, our research found about 60% of advisors surveyed had some experience with alts. Those respondents estimated about 30% of their clients have some alts exposure while anticipating further growth.
A broad term, “alternatives” includes not just private equity or hedge funds, but structured products, direct debt, infrastructure, even collectibles and cryptocurrency and other esoteric assets. It also includes investments in real estate beyond a client’s primary residence, made either directly or through publicly-traded and non-traded REITs, ETFs, mutual funds, interval funds, private placements and other vehicles.
In comments at the recent CAIS Summit in Los Angeles, CAIS founder and CEO Matt Brown pegged the alternative investment opportunity in the wealth space in the next decade as worth up to $10 trillion.
“Today there is $40 trillion under advisement,” Brown said. “In the next 10 years that number is going to grow to $70 trillion. Of that, 40% is managed by independent advisors and 60% by wirehouse advisors. In the next 10 years that will be 50/50. And there is a 5% allocation to alts today. Over the next decade it will be 20%. The main event for all of us is that 60/40 is giving rise to the modern portfolio, the 50/30/20 portfolio.”
To keep up with this trend, we are expanding our Wealth Management Real Estate news channel and newsletter. We’ll include a broader swath of investment options, asset managers and alternatives, as well as examples of how advisors and investment committees at wealth management firms are investing now—how they make their decisions, what platforms, and managers, they use, and how they report on the portfolios for their clients. Wealth Management Real Estate will no longer exist as a discrete brand. We are being fully incorporated into WealthManagement.com.
Our coverage will focus on the strategic insights of financial advisors and Chief Investment Officers (CIOs) from leading RIAs, including the increasing adoption of alternative investments to enhance conventional 60/40 portfolios. We will also cover the top asset managers in the alternatives space, shedding light on the ever-evolving landscape of private investment offerings, cutting-edge technology, and the latest developments in traditional ETFs and SMAs.
The WMRE newsletter will be folded into the Wealth Management Investment Strategies newsletter. (Subscribe here if you would like to continue receiving our coverage.) In addition, the Common Area podcast will be replaced by a new Wealth Management Invest podcast. The first episodes will go live in January.
In the coming weeks we will publish the final editions of the WMRE newsletter and fully pivot starting in 2024. We are excited about the next phase of our journey. If you have questions about our new direction or pitches on how we can cover the world of alternatives, do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] or [email protected]