Private real estate remains one of the most sought-after segments within the broader private assets universe. Yet as family offices, private banks and wealth advisors become increasingly selective, the criteria for allocating capital are evolving. Beyond the quality of the underlying asset, investors now seek clear governance, robust structuring and a transparent assessment of risk.
Nour Hassouna, Business Development Manager at Lucky Oldstone, explores how opportunities are sourced, evaluated and structured in today's market, and explains why clarity and alignment have become essential components of successful private real estate investing.
Access to non-listed real estate has broadened significantly in recent years. How is this changing the way family offices approach the asset class?
Access to non-listed real estate has clearly become broader, but also more selective.
Family offices today can access a much wider range of formats than before: direct acquisitions, club deals, private debt, co-investments, dedicated vehicles and operating platforms. In that sense, the market is richer. But the counterpart is that access alone is no longer enough. What matters now is the quality of the filtering, the clarity of the structure and the ability to understand what truly sits behind the opportunity.
The main friction points we see are often the same. First, visibility: investors want to understand the asset, the sponsor, the capital structure and the exit route in a much more concrete way. Second, alignment: in the current market, investors pay close attention to who is taking risk, who is remunerated first and whether interests remain aligned throughout the life of the transaction. Third, execution: in non-listed real estate, the asset is only one part of the story. The quality of the sponsor, the legal structure, the financing conditions and the operational follow-through are equally decisive.
In practice, many family offices remain very interested in private real estate, but with a much lower tolerance for opacity. They do not want a product; they want readable situations, understandable risk and a credible route from entry to exit.
In the transactions you observe, which factors have become most decisive in structuring successful deals?
Several factors have become increasingly decisive, and they often say more about the quality of a transaction than the headline return itself.
The first is ticket size. Not because one ticket size is better than another, but because it determines the type of investor who can participate and the level of concentration they are willing to accept. Some investors want direct and visible exposure to one asset or one operation; others prefer more diversified formats. A well-structured operation must take that into account from the beginning.
The second is liquidity, or at least visibility on liquidity. Private investors understand that non-listed real estate is not a liquid market, but they want to know how long capital is expected to be tied up, what the exit assumptions are, what the refinancing logic is and what happens if the initial business plan takes longer than expected.
Governance has also become central. In today's environment, investors want to know who makes decisions, how conflicts are handled, how reporting is organised and what level of information they will receive throughout the life of the operation.
Finally, alignment of interests has become one of the first things sophisticated investors look at. Investors ask very quickly who the sponsor is, how much capital they have committed, what fees exist at each level and whether the people structuring the operation are genuinely exposed to the same outcome. In our experience, that is often what distinguishes a financeable transaction from one that remains theoretical.
What makes a real estate opportunity genuinely suitable for a private investor today?
A transaction is suitable for a private investor when it is both intelligible and proportionate to the investor's objectives.
That means the opportunity must first be readable. The asset, the location, the use case, the value-creation logic and the exit route must be understandable without requiring the investor to become a full-time operator. This does not mean the project must be simple; it means the structure must make sense.
The second point is that the sponsor must be assessable. Private investors today are far less sensitive to presentation quality than to execution credibility. They want to know whether the operator has really done this before, whether the assumptions are grounded and whether the structure protects them if things take longer or become more complex.
The third point is that format matters. A direct equity operation, a private debt strategy and a co-investment vehicle do not answer the same investor need. Some private investors seek yield and downside protection, others seek visibility and upside, while some are looking for strategic exposure to a specific market. The right operation is one where the asset, the structure and the investor profile are coherent with one another.
In our experience, what makes an operation truly suitable today is not only the quality of the real estate. It is the quality of the translation between the opportunity and the investor.
How is the connection between investors and opportunities built, from sourcing to structuring?
In reality, this connection is built much earlier than the moment an opportunity is presented.
The first step is sourcing, but sourcing in itself is not enough. In markets such as Paris, a significant number of transactions circulate, yet only a limited portion are truly investable once one looks at the sponsor, the financing, the timing, the legal framework and the exit assumptions. The real work begins with selection.
Then comes the structuring phase. This is where the opportunity has to be qualified: is it suitable for direct equity, for club deal capital, for private debt, for one investor, for several, for a vehicle or for a bilateral format? In practice, many transactions fail not because the underlying asset is weak, but because the structure is not adapted to the investor base being approached.
Only after this filtering and framing does investor matching begin. Investors do not want to be shown every opportunity. They want to be shown the right opportunity, in the right format and with the right level of detail.
This is where our role becomes important. We spend a significant amount of time upstream, before any introduction is made, to determine whether a transaction is truly financeable and for whom. Sometimes an operation initially intended for a broad capital raise turns out to be better suited to one or two investors only, because concentration, governance and speed of execution matter more than volume. That kind of adjustment is often what makes a transaction realistic.
Has risk assessment become more complex for non-operating investors in markets such as Paris?
Yes, clearly.
Paris remains one of the most resilient and deepest real estate markets in Europe, but that should not be confused with simplicity. In recent years, risk assessment has become more granular. The differences between two assets in the same district—or even on the same street—can be considerable once one looks at use, micro-location, sponsor quality, tenant profile, repositioning potential or timing.
For a non-operating investor, that makes the reading of risk more demanding than before. It is no longer enough to say that Paris is a defensive market. One has to ask: which segment, which location, what entry basis, what sponsor, what financing conditions, what permitting exposure and what exit depth?
This is particularly true in transitional or value-add situations. In these cases, the real risk often lies less in the city itself than in the details of execution. A project may appear attractive at a high level, but the true investment case depends on construction phasing, administrative timing, leasing assumptions or refinancing visibility.
That is why the quality of intermediation matters. The role is not simply to show Paris real estate, but to make the risk legible.
How do you see the role of non-listed real estate evolving within family office allocations over the medium term?
We believe non-listed real estate will remain an important component of family office allocations, but in a more selective and intentional way.
For many years, private real estate was often approached as a broad allocation bucket. Today, it is becoming more differentiated. Investors are increasingly distinguishing between income strategies, secured debt, direct equity, operating platforms, student housing, hospitality, logistics and special situations. In other words, non-listed real estate is no longer one category; it is a set of different exposures with very different risk-return profiles.
Over the medium term, we believe three trends will remain strong.
The first is the continued demand for real assets with tangible downside protection. The second is growing interest in sectors supported by structural demand, such as student housing and certain living or logistics formats. The third is the increasing importance of governance and structure. Family offices still want private-market exposure, but they want it in a way that is more readable, more aligned and more controllable.
We also see some family offices becoming more open to combining formats: direct investments in certain situations, private debt in others and more selective use of funds or club deals when diversification or execution requires it. That flexibility, in our view, will continue to shape allocations going forward.
Where does Lucky Oldstone intervene in the chain between opportunity identification and allocation to private investors?
We intervene well before the transaction reaches the investor.
Our role begins at the sourcing and analysis stage. That means identifying selected opportunities, assessing whether they are genuinely financeable, reviewing the sponsor and the structure and understanding what type of investor or capital solution may be appropriate.
We then intervene in the structuring and positioning of the transaction. That may mean helping define the right format, clarifying the risk for the investor, reviewing the alignment of interests or ensuring that the opportunity is presented in a way that corresponds to the expectations of the capital being approached.
In practice, our work is often that of a bridge. On one side are sponsors or operators who know their real estate projects extremely well. On the other are investors who need the transaction to be intelligible, structured and investable from their perspective.
That is how we see our role at Lucky Oldstone: not simply as a point of access to opportunities, but as a partner involved throughout the chain that transforms a real estate situation into a transaction that can realistically be understood, structured and allocated.
This is especially important today, because investors are not looking for volume. They are looking for relevance, selectivity and clarity.