Looking at preliminary figures for real estate debt fundraising in 2019 — which have come in lower than the bumper crop fund­raisings for debt-focused vehicles in 2017 and 2018 — one might think the real estate debt investment market was experiencing some sort of difficulty.

But that does not appear to be the case.

Instead, several factors — not the least of which is the prominence of open-end debt funds, which are not included in Institutional Real Estate, Inc.’s FundTracker data — suggest the idea of diminishing investor interest in the real estate debt space is simply not true.

Market participants agree investor appetite for real estate debt investments does not appear to be diminishing.

“I spend a fair amount of our time meeting with investors. I would tell you that there is strong interest in debt, both domestically and internationally,” says Richard Flohr, managing director at CrossHarbor Capital Partners and portfolio manager of the