Real estate fund managers see 2021 as capital-raising opportunity

A majority of real estate fund sponsors believe capital will be more abundant in 2021 than 2020, according to Juniper Square’s recently released 2021 CRE Capital-Raising Survey, which collected responses from U.S.-based real estate GPs about their fundraising plans for the year ahead.

“What really stood out was the level of optimism vis-à-vis capital raising,” said Brandon Sedloff, senior vice president of sales at Juniper Square. More than 50 percent of respondents believed capital will be more abundant in 2021, compared with the previous year, while less than 10 percent believed capital would be more scarce, and the remainder expecting capital availability to continue at about the same level.

In 2020, capital-raising focused on existing investors, but in 2021, fund sponsors are looking to attract capital from new investors. Some 81 percent of respondents intend to raise the majority of capital in 2021 from new investors. And the top strategy for findi