Private Real Estate Investing Syndicates: An Introduction
Private Real Estate Syndicates: An Introduction
Caitlyn Driehorst
Published: May 12, 2025
What are private real estate syndications? Why haven’t you heard of them – and could they be a good idea for you? This world of investment opportunities is decently hush-hush. However, for those who have already checked boxes for cash savings, retirement strategy, investing for kids’ education and other goals, these deals may provide interesting diversification to an overall portfolio. And compared to life as a hobbyist landlord, these deals can provide real estate exposure with greater diversification across opportunities — and fewer headaches.
We’re excited to bring in Sean Swift, a Principal at Bedford Property Group and an Advisor at Northmarq Capital, for an upcoming webinar to dive deeper into this topic. Ahead of that session, though — what are private real estate investing syndicates, anyway?
Register to join our session on Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 9:00 Pacific / 12:00 noon Eastern.
(Can’t make this time? Sign up anyway and you’ll receive a recording in your email.)
Why invest in real estate in the first place?
Broadly, the goal of investing in real estate is the same as investing in stocks, bonds, or almost any other asset class: you’re hoping either for appreciation (buy low, wait a while, sell high) or for income (dividends, interest payments, etc.) The extent to which you’re optimizing within or across these objectives varies by your time horizon, your current tax situation, and other personal factors.
Real estate investing can complement to equity and fixed income investing as diversification: one hopes that the factors that affect stock and bond markets (e.g., exchange rates, tariffs, a pandemic here or there, etc.) will either not affect the real estate market or will affect it differently, preserving the value of your overall portfolio.
Real estate is also often viewed as attractive in times of inflation: here, the hope is that even as more and more money sloshes around the economy, there’s only so much land available on this green earth, so prices for real estate will rise with the purchasing power of a currency.
Finally, in certain situations and for certain investors, real estate investing is attractive because of unique tax benefits (i.e., using depreciation to generate losses) and for the opportunity to invest with leverage.
Of course, real life is more complicated than theory: real estate’s diversification benefit may be exaggerated because appraisals typically lag real changes in the market (whereas public markets are priced at least daily), the 2008 crisis showed that “the housing market never goes down” isn’t exactly as self-evident as one could hope, and while leverage can magnify gains, it can also magnify losses. As always, caveat emptor.
This illustration is provided solely for generic educational value and is not an offering for any live deal. Identifying details intentionally omitted. No specific opportunity is being provided or endorsed in sharing this example.
What are private real estate investing syndicates?
When most people think about investing in real estate, they think of either REITs (publicly-traded pooled vehicles) or of becoming a mom-and-pop landlord. However, there’s a whole world that sits between these two opportunities: smaller deals that are syndicated (i.e., shared) with a smaller pool of investors.
These deals are typically assembled by smaller managers, who hunt for opportunities, negotiate with sellers, structure a certain amount of debt financing, arrange for ongoing management – and then carve out part of the deal to circulate for external equity investors.
A common profile for such a deal would be a $10M acquisition with $5M - $7M of debt financing and $3M - $5M of the deal parceled out for equity investors, often with a $100,000 negotiable minimum for investment. Investors’ money is then typically locked up for a decade or so, and the deal sponsors’ project kicks into gear: investing in property upgrades, implementing new management, locking in tenants, and, eventually, paying out income or looking for a new buyer.
Beyond that common structure, these deals are meaningfully heterogeneous (or, as investor Sean Swift prefers, “site-specific”):
The goal may be long-term appreciation: The property may be a turnaround or new development, and investors hope to make most of their money from an eventual sale
The goal may be current income: Deal sponsors may be optimizing the property for tenancy or other income-generation, such that investors hope to make their money back with regular payouts
The opportunity may be commercial, residential or a mix
Risk can vary from very high (e.g., a greenfield development) to pretty low (e.g., taking over a functioning operation just to implement tweaks)
These deals may be especially interesting for high-earners who live in expensive areas where renting a personal residence makes more sense than buying a multimillion-dollar “starter home.” Investing in a real estate syndicate gives your broader wealth picture exposure to this asset class’s diversification benefits, and depending on how the deal is structured and its ultimate objective, some or all of the income may be tax-deferred.
This illustration is provided solely for generic educational value and is not an offering for any live deal. Identifying details intentionally omitted. No specific opportunity is being provided or endorsed in sharing this example.
Why don’t I hear about these types of deals as an option for my money?
These deals can often fly under the radar, even for investors who consider themselves plugged in. Deals are often not advertised publicly and instead travel through personal and professional networks.
One reason? Regulation. These deals are only open to accredited investors, and there’s meaningful compliance risk in being perceived as advertising a deal to non-qualified investors.
In fact, we hit on this risk in assembling our upcoming webinar: Sean and I want to walk through a sample deal to show how key terms and fee structures come together in practice. (I always learn best when things are hands-on.) Legal counsel strongly discouraged us from showing any real deals, even in an explicitly educational context, lest we be perceived as marketing a deal without confirming that attendees are accredited investors. We have ultimately decided to take on some of this risk for the educational value, and will have heavy disclaimers on each page, redact certain details, and voiceover repeatedly that this is education, not a proffer.
Another reason is more benign: repeat investors typically fill up deals. These smaller deals are deeply human. Once a manager gets to know an individual investor – and once an investor gets to know that manager – they commonly invest together again on subsequent deals. There may only be so much allocation leftover for new investors by the time previous investors have come on-board, such that a manager won’t have to go far afield to fill up a deal.
This illustration is provided solely for generic educational value and is not an offering for any live deal. Identifying details intentionally omitted. No specific opportunity is being provided or endorsed in sharing this example.
Of course, as one of the 18% of financial advisors who are women, I can’t help but observe that this is literally — if inadvertently — a “good ol’ boys” network. When women and historically-excluded groups don’t even hear about new opportunities, they don’t have an opportunity to invest, and that perpetuates wealth inequality.
One reason this webinar was important to me – even though there’s some compliance risk! – is because I think that education is so important to expand access. I gnash my teeth when people generalize and say that women don’t like to invest: in my experience, women just want to feel competent before they feel confident, which seems reasonable enough to me. So here we are, providing education so the next time you get one of these PDFs in your email inbox, you can know what you’re looking at — and make a decision for yourself.
Attend our upcoming webinar to learn more
RightWise is excited to partner with real estate investor and deal sponsor Sean Swift for a “fireside chat” webinar to walk through the how, why and what of these opportunities:
When in your investing journey is it appropriate to think about these opportunities? How much would you need ready to invest?
What is the overall process of investing in one of these deals?
How should you understand the complex layers of fees?
What should you look for to evaluate deals?
What are the tax benefits, and how can they especially benefit high earners?
How can you find these deals when they typically circulate via whisper networks?
Register below to join our session on Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 9:00 Pacific / 12:00 noon Eastern.
(Can’t make this time? Sign up anyway and you’ll receive a recording in your email.)
Sean Swift
Real Estate Investor
Sean Swift is a Principal at Bedford Property Group, a private multifamily investment firm and an Advisor at Northmarq Capital, where he helps institutional real estate investors source joint-venture equity. Before launching his own firm with his business partner, Sean held roles at CBRE and the Boston Consulting Group.
Sean holds an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and lives in Southern California with his wife and four daughters.
Caitlyn Driehorst
Founding Advisor & CEO, RightWise Wealth
Caitlyn Driehorst is a financial advisor at RightWise Wealth, as well as the firm's founder and CEO. Caitlyn began her career at the Boston Consulting Group and held strategy roles at MGM Resorts, Capital Group American Funds and two venture-backed wealth startups.
She holds a B.A. from the University of Chicago and an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and lives in Las Vegas with her husband and son.
Chris Casale
Financial Advisor, RightWise Wealth
Chris is a Financial Advisor at RightWise Wealth. Before transitioning careers, Chris spent more than a decade working with and for major hospitality brands in commercial real estate finance and project development.
Chris holds a B.S. in Finance and a B.A. in Marketing from Georgetown University, as well as a Masters in Financial Planning from the University of Georgia. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and two sons.
An especially strong disclaimer: One reason that these deals are under-discussed is because of the compliance risk associated with advertising to non-accredited investors. Thus, we want to provide an especially explicit up-top disclaimer that this material is solely educational: no specific deal is being offered through this material and RightWise Wealth is not endorsing any specific deal or firm.
Author: Caitlyn Driehorst
Date Published: 5/12/2025
