Survey after survey has reached the same conclusion — real estate investors are willing to move further out on the risk spectrum to get the returns they need. Data from Institutional Real Estate, Inc.’s FundTracker database indicates investors are not only saying they are willing to take on more risk; they are actually doing it.

According to FundTracker, higher-return funds — opportunistic funds or value-added/opportunistic hybrid funds — have increased their share of the market every year since 2013. Three years ago, approximately 64 percent of capital raised by closed funds was slotted for higher-return strategies. In the first 11 months of 2015, more than 74 percent of the capital raised by funds holding a final closing this year was for higher-return strategies. In total during the past three years, higher-return funds have accounted for 67 percent of the capital raised but only 49 percent of the total number of funds closed.

Although lower-return strategie