Business
How multifamily offices are playing commercial real estate
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
The family offices of high-net-worth investors are increasingly pouring their money into alternatives, and real estate is high on their list. For some, instead of going it alone, they’re joining forces in multifamily offices.
The multifamily office model lets these investment arms of wealthy families pool resources, share expertise and unlock bigger deals. With more than $12 billion under management, Realm is a multifamily office investment platform specializing in commercial real estate. The typical family using Realm has about $200 million in investable assets.
CNBC spoke with its CEO, Travis King. Here are some highlights from the conversation, edited for length and clarity:
Property Play: Why go multifamily?
Travis King: We are better investors collectively than we would be individually. So what that means is we’re combining not only capital, but also our collective trusted relationships and industry knowledge and geographic knowledge to find and execute better investment decisions.
You’ve seen big allocations amongst the institutions. They’ve all grown their real estate allocations, in some cases, from low single digits to, in some cases,10% or more allocation-wise. You still don’t see that with a lot of the family offices, although there’s a strong desire to do so.
So I think that next horizon is going to be finding ways to access direct real estate with these families that will allow them to be able to diversify a little bit more and enjoy some of those benefits of real estate that have been a little bit elusive unless you wanted to actually buy that real estate yourself, which can tend to be very time intensive, for sure, and, a lot of times, requires a pretty large dedicated staff.
PP: How do you play real estate?
TK: Real estate is evolving, right? There’s never one thing that you want to be focused on in real estate. I think that’s part of what gives us a leg up. … You’ve heard the adage ‘location, location, location,’ and that’s true. I think that continues to be a very true adage. What we find is that we’re unique in that we move across property type and across geography. So given the scale that we have as an organization with, I think collectively, north of $12 billion in investable assets amongst these families that we work with, we have the ability to see a lot of different deal flow in a lot of different areas.
In real estate, there’s a macro-cycle, and that cycle is always very important. You don’t want to swim against the tide. You also don’t want to, you know, try to fight the cycle. But there’s micro-cycles that happen in different geographies and within different property types, so that’s a key thing to consider.
PP: So of the many CRE sectors, what’s your fave?
TK: If you look at this point in time, what we think is interesting, you’ll start with office. I think in a lot of areas, we’re starting to see office really be in an area where we think that pricing has kind of bottomed. And you know that because when we start looking at some of these investment decisions — we’re looking at one right now in Northern California — it becomes less of, ‘Hey, would we like this if it were just a little bit cheaper?’ And it starts to get to the point where that’s not really the question anymore. It really gets down to saying, ‘We know it’s cheap. It’s intrinsically cheap.’ In some cases, we’re buying things at 15% of replacement cost.
Realm CEO Travis King
Courtesy of Realm
PP: What are you staying away from?
TK: What I try to stay away from are broad categories, right? Say, for example, like, well R&D or industrial is going to be over. These things cycle, and there’s going to be different points in time. So I think the market, by and large … they look at things and say, ‘OK, data centers, you know, they’ve been over invested, and now there’s too much capital in data centers.’ We particularly were, we’re not really in data centers in a large way, because we focus on that lower middle market.
PP: Isn’t everybody in data centers?
TK: Yeah, but it’s the big boys in data centers, right? I’m trying to find an angle where we have something that others don’t. If you look at the big boys that have got tens of billions of dollars in their fund to be able to invest, there’s a lot of dollars required to do the infrastructure in the data center. We really focus on, kind of $50 million deals and below, because we feel like we’ve got an edge there. So yes, everyone is in data centers, but it’s one of those things where a lot of people are saying, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of money chasing this. It might be late in the cycle.’ I tend to probably agree with that, but it’s also just outside of the realm of where we’re trying to invest.
PP: How does your business change if interest rates come down?
TK: I would say reducing interest rates helps real estate in most every regard. I think first and foremost, it’s going to help transaction volume. I think it just provides a wind to the sails of transactions, and it raises the value of all real estate.
Food bills are set to soar as much as 10 per cent this year as a direct consequence of the Iran war, a key industry body has warned.
The Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which represents 12,000 food and drink manufacturers, has hiked its inflation forecast for the year from 3.2 per cent to between nine and 10 per cent.
During the 2022 cost of living crisis, food inflation rose at a rate of 10.9 per cent, figures from the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) show, while the following year was even worse at 14.6 per cent.
Since then, it had dropped back to 2.7 per cent (2024) and 4.2 per cent (2025), but while this year had originally been forecast to deliver food inflation of 3.2 per cent, the latest assessment is that it will instead see a huge rise in the second half of 2026.
The FDF said the current situation is “unprecedented and hard to predict”, but it’s “clear that food inflation is going to rise in the months ahead”.
How much that adds to the average bill depends on the size and frequency of a consumer’s usual grocery habits, but on average, bills could rise by around £588, according to some estimates.
Consumer rights and review site Which? frequently assesses UK supermarkets for cost, and at the start of 2026, an average basket of 89 shopping products cost £161.56 at Aldi and up to £217.02 at Waitrose.
Assuming food inflation lands at the mid-point of the FDF forecast, 9.5 per cent, and that all products and supermarkets applied that uplift equally, that would move the costs of those shops up to £176.91 and £237.64 respectively.
Research from confused.com suggested the average UK household spent £119 each week on food shopping, which is £6,188 each year; a 9.5 per cent uplift to that equates to an extra £588 annually, or a total of just over £130 per week and £6,775 annually.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to meet with some supermarket chiefs on Wednesday, including Sainsbury’s and Tesco, over discussions to assess the upcoming impact of price rises on the cost of living. The Treasury has described it as a “fact-finding” conversation.
Last month, Asda boss Allan Leighton called on Labour to do more to help businesses after creating “a lot of constraints” for them.
For food manufacturers, there is both a concern now and another yet to come in terms of energy cost rises.
Diesel – used in farm machinery – is up by 80 per cent since the start of the war, while fertiliser costs could increase further, as well as supply being constrained. The FDF also points to lost sales due to cancelled shipments to the Middle East, with UK firms regularly exporting cheese, cereals, chocolate and more to the region.
Dr Liliana Danila, chief economist at The Food and Drink Federation, said: “The food and drink sector is already feeling the force of this geopolitical shock. As one of the UK’s energy-intensive industries, manufacturers are facing mounting energy bills, rising transport and packaging costs and disruption across key supply chains.
“These pressures are hitting simultaneously and are a significant challenge for businesses to absorb.
“The current situation is unprecedented and hard to predict; however, given the scale and speed of these cost increases, and despite companies’ best efforts not to pass price increases on, it’s clear that food inflation is going to rise in the months ahead.”
The FDF says its upgraded inflation figures were based on “assumptions that the Strait of Hormuz opens to cargo traffic within the next two to three weeks”, as has been suggested by Donald Trump this week, and that most commodities, including oil, gas and fertiliser production, return to normal within a year.
In the past few months, the FDF has repeatedly called for the government to offer support to businesses in the sector from rising energy bills in the same way as it does to those in some other manufacturing areas.
GST collections: India’s net Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections increased to Rs 1.78 lakh crore in March 2026, marking a rise of 8.2% compared to the previous month, according to official figures released on Wednesday.Gross GST revenue for March stood at Rs 2 lakh crore, which is an 8.8% increase over the same month last year.Abhishek Jain, Indirect Tax Head & Partner, KPMG says, “GST collections continue to show steady 9% annual growth, supported by strong import activity this month and consistent compliance. While export refunds have eased this month but remain healthy overall for the year”Refunds during the month totalled Rs 0.22 lakh crore, up 13.8% on a year-on-year basis, which resulted in net GST collections of Rs 1.78 lakh crore.Domestic GST revenue reached Rs 1.46 lakh crore, registering a growth of 5.9%, while revenue from imports was recorded at Rs 0.54 lakh crore, rising sharply by 17.8% during the period.Post-settlement GST figures across states presented a varied trend. While industrially advanced states recorded strong growth, several others reported a decline.Maharashtra contributed the highest amount to the overall collections at Rs 0.13 lakh crore on a pre-settlement basis, followed by Karnataka and Gujarat.Among states showing an increase in post-settlement SGST collections were Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, among others.On the other hand, states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Chandigarh, Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, among others, registered a decline in post-settlement SGST revenues.
A wave of bullishness swept the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Wednesday, pushing the 100 Index up by more than 5,000 points to reach 153,700.
The surge reflects increased investor confidence and strong trading activity across major sectors.
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