What resilient fundraising, evolving industrial strategies, living-sector demand, and increasing secondaries activity reveal about where capital is finding conviction in US real estate
‘North American real estate entered 2026 cautiously but steadily, having shown resilience in fundraising and deal-making to end-2025’, writes Henry Lam in Preqin’s North American Private Markets in 2026 report (for subscribers to Preqin Private Markets Research).
North America-focused real estate funds raised $109bn in 2025 – the highest annual total since 2022. The number of funds increased by 35% compared with 2024. This suggests the asset class is stabilizing following post-pandemic volatility, underpinned by renewed investor interest.
Although deal flow recovered throughout 2025, the market is still waiting for the next clear growth sector to emerge, says Henry. Over recent months, Preqin First Close has spoken with various US real estate fund managers to uncover which strategies and sectors are gaining traction.
Here, we take a second look at how the US real estate landscape is evolving.
Investors are increasingly leaning into needs-based living sectors, where structural supply-demand imbalances and favorable demographics support reliable returns and long-term value creation.
In multifamily real estate – residential buildings with multiple rental units, such as apartment complexes and build-to-rent communities – persistent housing shortages across the US, elevated mortgage rates, and high homeownership costs continue to support demand. The growth of a permanent renter class has further reinforced the sector’s appeal.
Preqin data shows that in 2025, residential real estate accounted for a quarter of all deals in the asset class, signaling a shift by LPs and GPs toward the sector for new opportunities. In North America in particular, residential accounted for the largest proportion of transaction volume and the highest share of deal value at 29% and 36%, respectively.
Kristy Heuberger, President of Investment Management at multifamily real estate firm Fogelman, tells us: ‘The US is underhoused, home buying is less affordable, and younger generations have less desire to own a home. These factors contribute to an optimistic and resilient outlook for value creation and stable returns in the multifamily space. Success in this cycle will be driven less by cap rate compression and cheap debt, and more by asset selectivity, micro-market expertise, and operational execution.’
Similar dynamics are supporting renewed interest in senior housing, as we explored in Preqin First Close earlier this year. Demographic trends – such as the ‘silver tsunami’, which refers to the rapid growth of the 80-plus population, and the increasing number of baby boomers reaching retirement age – are expected to drive sustained demand.
According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 560,000 senior housing units will be required in the US to meet demand by 2030, yet only around 191,000 units are expected to be delivered at current development rates.
Retirement communities, assisted living facilities, and memory care centers are all set to see greater demand. Capital dedicated exclusively to senior housing, however, remains limited. Aggregate capital raised by residential or niche sector funds peaked at $9bn in 2021 but has stayed below $3.1bn annually since. Meanwhile, deal momentum continues to lag demand growth, falling to $784mn in Q1–Q3 2025 from $4.8bn in 2019, according to Preqin’s Global Report, Real Estate in 2026.
For Brian Landrum, Co-Head of Harbert Management Corporation’s US Seniors Housing Team, this imbalance is central to the sector’s appeal: ‘The sector is experiencing a surge in occupancies, with 19 consecutive quarters of positive net absorption, and an 85% decline in new supply from peak levels just as demand accelerates. Few real estate sectors offer that combination. Senior housing continues to offer attractive going-in yields and unmatched demographic support.’
In industrial real estate, investment strategies are being reshaped by trade flows, manufacturing reshoring, and population growth, driving demand for logistics-oriented assets across key US regions.
Port infrastructure expansion and trade activity continue to influence local investment dynamics. In Texas, for example, Port Houston had its most successful year in 2025, with record growth in both total tonnage and container volumes, according to commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield’s latest North America Ports and Trade Update. This is supported by ongoing infrastructure investment aimed at improving efficiency and expanding capacity to position the port for future growth, outlines the report.
More broadly, reshoring is driving manufacturing demand across the Southeastern and Central US. According to PwC’s 2026 Property Type Outlook on industrials, manufacturing now accounts for 20% of new industrial leasing, buoyed by reshoring in high-value technology sectors such as semiconductors, electronics, and components for data centers, along with defense and aerospace.
On the medium-term outlook, Paul Smith, Partner at Dallas-based real estate manager Velocis tells us: ‘What we see looking forward for the next five years is certainly way more favorable than looking backward at what we went through over the previous five. Transaction volume is also improving and, most importantly, fundamentals in most of the space, particularly industrial and retail, are improving. Right before COVID, we segued into a couple of different strategies – secondaries, and then industrial development. We saw the opportunities not only in the secondaries space, but also in ground-up development for industrial properties, and we’ve built deep teams to service each of these verticals.’
Alongside sector-specific strategies, capital constraints and liquidity pressures are driving growing interest in real estate secondaries. While still a relatively small segment of the market, secondaries can offer access to high-quality assets at a potential discount to net asset value through GP-led restructurings and LP-led sales.
In 2025, three real estate secondaries funds closed, raising a combined $5.1bn and exceeding 2024 levels (two fund closes raising $4.7bn), according to Preqin data. We currently track 16 real estate secondaries funds targeting an aggregate $7.0bn. However, competition remains uneven across deal sizes.
David Seifert, Partner at Velocis, has found pockets of opportunity within LP stakes at the smaller end of the market: ‘We’re buying LP interests in other real estate funds. The underlying asset exposure could be anything – industrial, multifamily, retail, office, healthcare, data centers, student housing, or senior housing. But the typical transaction is buying from a pension fund, from a foundation, from a family office, generally in the range of a few million dollars to maybe $25–30mn.’
‘We’ve been able to find a lot of interesting deals. We tend to stay on the smaller end of the market in terms of transaction sizes, but we’ve been able to create a lot of diversification within this strategy at pretty interesting pricing. Given it’s an illiquid, inefficient market, you really have to know your space. You have to know the underlying assets, and how to price them correctly, how to value them correctly, to generate good returns.’
Jayda Etienne is Deputy Editor, Preqin First Close.
Second Look is edited by Libby Fennessy, Production Editor of Preqin First Close.
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The opinions and facts included in the above do not constitute investment advice. Professional advice should be sought before making any investment or other decisions. Preqin accepts no liability for any decisions taken in relation to the above.