Investors in real estate funds may be confused by some of the regulatory changes occurring in the United States — particularly those requiring advisers to register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At the most basic level, investors may wonder whether they should care about what’s going on and how much time it will take to figure out what really matters.

All of this is part of the fallout from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the U.S. law passed in 2010. This major overhaul of the U.S. financial regulatory structure greatly impacts alternative asset managers. Unlike Europe, where managers were already subject to regulation, in the United States very few managers were registered. Prior law let them avoid registration by limiting the number of funds they advised to less than 15. It’s no surprise that virtually everyone limited their funds to meet this test. The Dodd-Frank Act replaced the 15-fund exemption with a general