DST fundraising reached approximately $5.5B through July, a 31% increase from the roughly $4.2B raised in the same period in 2025, according to Mountain Dell Consulting. The industry is on track to raise approximately $10B this year, Mountain Dell told AltsWire. That would set a new annual record, besting 2022’s $9.4B. 

DST sales totaled $985.1M in July, the most in any month this year and a 34.7% increase from June’s $731.4M.

The fundraising vehicles have been around for more than 20 years but have risen in popularity as aging property owners seek to move from active ownership to passive income sources. The vehicle is a securitized form of 1031 exchanges, which allow property owners to avoid paying taxes on the sale of a property if they invest their gains into another deal in a 45-day window. 

In a market with increasingly changeable conditions, finding and securing a similar type of property to complete an exchange in the 45-day window required to avoid paying taxes can be a challenge. The popularity of DSTs comes from their ability to take the property hunt out of the equation, offering sponsored properties that can be fractionally owned for as little as $100K. In doing so, they offer an easy-to-find, hands-off investment that also ticks the boxes of the 1031’s like-kind tax code requirement.

The demand for these entities hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of the biggest names in investment management, which have stepped up to sponsor DSTs. In March, Fortress Investment Group launched a fund using DSTs to give investors access to a variety of multifamily properties. Last year, Nuveen launched a DST fund that allowed investors to roll their gains into its $2.1B nontraded REIT.