Catal Capital, a family office with deep roots in real estate, is charting a new course through the shifting landscape of commercial property investment. As the firm’s Managing Director, Trisha Connolly Horowitz, explains, Catal Capital has recently expanded its reach beyond ownership and development, launching a private credit strategy aimed at value-add and construction loans in the middle market. “We just launched Catal Capital. It’s about a year old, and we are focused on value-add and construction, middle market real estate debt deals,” Horowitz tells GlobeSt.com, describing a flurry of recent activity that includes a $20 million industrial deal in New York and new ventures in self-storage and retail-office properties.
This evolution at Catal Capital is emblematic of a broader trend: family offices are stepping up their allocations to commercial real estate, seeking both to preserve and grow their wealth in a market that rewards flexibility and long-term vision. Horowitz notes that while Catal has always been a real estate owner and operator—boasting $2 billion in assets under management through its Vista Property arm—recent years have brought a deliberate push into new strategies. The firm is now actively exploring partnerships with institutional limited partners from the Middle East, Asia and Europe, signaling a willingness to scale up and diversify.
A Flexible Capital Source
Industry experts see this as part of a wider rethinking among family offices, whose numbers have grown rapidly alongside the fortunes of entrepreneurs and industrialists. Seth Niedermayer, partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, tells GlobeSt. that family offices are positioned to move nimbly where larger institutions may be constrained. “What makes family offices unique is that they’re very flexible,” he says. “Unlike a large institution, a fund or a bank, family offices are representing the interests of one family or one person, and so the direction that the family office takes is really driven by that one person.”
This flexibility allows occupiers to pursue a variety of structures, from equity investments in new developments to lending platforms that capitalize on the current scarcity of traditional bank financing.
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Niedermayer points out that many, even those without a legacy in real estate, are hiring seasoned professionals to build out sophisticated investment platforms. “They’re actually building out an entire real estate arm of their business, an entire platform. And so they have professionals who are doing this work on their behalf, who are seasoned, they understand investment, they know the market.”
For those without an in-house team, deal flow often comes through networks of brokers, personal relationships, or so-called “club deals,” where several family offices pool resources to tackle larger opportunities.
A Greater Appetite for Risk
The risk appetite varies widely among family offices, shaped by the personalities and histories of the families themselves. Some seek stable, income-producing assets, while others, often with backgrounds in private equity or entrepreneurship, are drawn to more opportunistic plays.
Niedermayer describes recent deals where family offices have provided preferred equity for ground-up student housing developments, offering capital and stability without demanding day-to-day operational control.
Tal Peri, head of US & Latin America at Union Investment Real Estate, has witnessed a surge in family office activity, particularly during periods when institutional investors have pulled back. “I’ve been engaging more with that community over the last two, three years, because that’s the group that is especially active when the big institutions are less active,” he tells GlobeSt.
This segment, he notes, is often able to generate higher returns and tolerate more risk, thanks to their longer investment horizons and the absence of external redemption pressures. “Their risk appetite is higher, and their return expectations, obviously, are also higher with that.”
Sophisticated Strategies
Peri describes a landscape where family offices are targeting distressed capital structures, seeking value in assets that may be over-leveraged or in need of repositioning. Some are buying notes or stepping in as lenders, while others are pursuing conversions—transforming obsolete office buildings into much-needed residential units, especially in markets like New York, where incentives are available.
“There are a couple of strategies: private debt, where they actually go into the foot of a lender, then provide capital, either in form of pure senior loans, sometimes it’s a pref equity or mezzanine loan,” Peri explains.
As the sector becomes more sophisticated, some are moving beyond deal-by-deal investing to build vertically integrated platforms, hiring in-house asset managers and engineers to support growing portfolios. There is also a trend toward forming discretionary funds, allowing for faster decision-making and the ability to seize opportunities without the delays of syndicating capital. Peri emphasizes that the new generation of family office leaders often brings fresh perspectives and a willingness to innovate, sometimes opening the door to outside capital and more complex structures.
Despite the diversity of strategies, a common thread runs through the current wave of investment in the space: a commitment to long-term value creation and a readiness to adapt as market conditions evolve. Both Horowitz and Niedermayer note that real estate is a growing allocation in family office portfolios, prized not only for its potential returns but also for its role in wealth preservation and tax planning.
As Catal Capital’s recent moves illustrate, family offices are no longer content to play a passive role in commercial real estate. They are building platforms, launching funds and forging partnerships that position them as major players in a market where agility and vision are at a premium.
“They’re sophisticated,” Peri says. “Don’t think they’re just wealthy people with capital and a long-term view. They have deep analysis behind it, and sometimes they’re betting, but they’re betting with knowledge.”
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
