Real estate investment has been relatively stable during the past couple of years. While there are pockets of bubble-like activity, in general, the asset class has been calm and predictable. That investment calmness can be seen in the length of time it is taking closed-end funds to reach a final close.

After several years of yo-yoing timeframes, the industry appears to have settled into expecting funds to close in about 17 months, give or take a couple of weeks.

The largest delta between funds that closed in 2019 and those that closed in 2018 can be found in the non-mega-fund category (i.e., those funds that raised less than $1 billion). At the end of 2018, the average non-mega-fund reaching final closing was on offer about 16.8 months. In 2019, this same fund took 17.5 months to close — so about three weeks longer.

The all-funds trimmed mean, which drops the top and bottom outliers, shows funds in 2018 took 16.5 months to reach their targets compared with the