Third quarter 2019 saw real estate investment funds continue the downward trend of recent fundraising, which has been on a decline over the past few quarters, according to preliminary numbers from Institutional Real Estate, Inc.’s FundTracker database. Early numbers show the slight decline in fund closings is taking a more dramatic downturn with approximately 16 funds closing in third quarter 2019, compared to 23 funds in second quarter 2019 and 28 in first quarter 2019.

Looking back to the first two quarters of 2019, things seemed promising. First quarter 2019 saw a decrease in fund closings with 28 funds closing, but they raised a whopping $63.62 billion, with the majority of that total going to two mega-funds from Brookfield Asset Management. Second quarter saw a substantial decrease in fundraising volume, with $19.04 billion, compared to second quarter 2018’s fundraising volume of $27.13 billion.

The downward trend continued in the third quarter. Looking at pre