If what they say is true, that there’s loads of capital looking for a home, why do investment managers need to turn to crowdfunding? The Carlton Group chief investment officer Navish Chawla (flanked by NGKF’s Robert Shapiro and Dan Gronich) says it’s a merchandising tool. His company’s Carlton Strategic Ventures crowdfunding platform attracts a few thousand hits a month from accredited investors (worth $1M and making $200k/year).
Retail investors, for their part, can choose what to invest in rather than entering a blind pool, Navish said at a recent B’nai B’rith lunch at The Cornell Club. Crowdfunding for real estate added up to $1.5B of deals in 2011 and $5.1B last year, and experts expect it to hit $100B in 20 years.
