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Who We Are

We provide our private community of family offices, RIAs, and high-net-worth individuals with premium access to the exclusive deals and funds of leading real estate managers across the United States. Leveraging over a decade of industry expertise, we deliver a unique blend of deep market insights, compelling investment outcomes, and personalized service to our investor community.

$0M+

Investor Capital Placed 1

0%

Oversubscription Rate 2

0

U.S. Geographic
Markets

$0B+

Value of Transactions Funded 3

Why UCG

Connected

Our team of private equity real estate veterans have worked at insitutional investment firms and have deep relationships with talented managers across the country that specialize in various property types and strategies. We are the first call when they have new, unique investment offerings.

Our manager requirements

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Curated

Our rigorous sourcing and due diligence processes allow us to analyze hundreds of investment offerings each year. We then curate a select few investments that not only possess compelling risk-return profiles, but are also structured fairly and transparently.

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Confidential

We work with leading real estate managers on an exclusive basis, so we are the only place to find their coveted offerings. We have established ourselves as a preferred partner to leading managers because we are their peers and consistently perform.

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Recent Investments

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Exclusive GP Fund with seasoned manager focused on Class A industrial, multifamily and student housing developments in core U.S. markets.

$76,300,000

CLOSED | OVERSUBSCRIBED

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Proprietary fund with vertically integrated manager focused on state-of-the-art industrial developments in primary logistics markets across the U.S.

$270,200,000

CLOSED | OVERSUBSCRIBED

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A private co-investment opportunity with a leading developer in a 1 million SF, Class A industrial project.

$19,400,000

CLOSED | FULLY SUBSCRIBED

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Exclusive GP Fund with veteran manager focused on industrial and multifamily projects in rapidly growing markets in the Southeastern U.S.

$13,800,000

CLOSED | OVERSUBSCRIBED

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We are redefining private real estate investing and who gets access to the most exclusive investment opportunities.

Ben Harris

Founder of Uncommon Capital Group

Our Story

Uncommon Capital Group was founded with a mission to deliver premium investment access, due diligence, and service to a premier community of private investors.

Ben Harris, the founder, began his career at a subsidiary of Starwood Capital, one of the largest real estate private equity firms in the world, where he conducted investment analysis for the company and its sovereign wealth fund investors. He then joined Origin Investments as one of the first employees where he created and led the investor relations and business development team. Under Ben’s leadership, the firm grew to more than $1 billion in assets under management and became one of the nation’s preeminent direct-to-investor platforms.

Uncommon Capital Group was born out of these experiences and the belief that private investors deserve an institutional experience at every step of the investment process. Harnessing more than a decade of industry expertise, we offer a distinguished combination of personalized service, comprehensive market insights, and a proven track record of success for investors.

Resources & News

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Is Bigger Better? Not For Real Estate Funds.

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Are Your Real Estate Investments Ready for the AI Revolution?

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What’s up with industrial leasing?

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1 Reflects capital raised by Ben Harris since 2016, including capital raised at previous investment firms. Data as of December 31, 2024.

2 Oversubscription rate is calculated by dividing total equity raised by the initial equity target for associated capital raises since inception of Uncommon Capital Group LLC. Data as of December 31, 2024.

3 Value of transactions funded represents the underwritten peak all-in cost of real estate investments for which Ben Harris raised the capital. This is calculated by dividing capital raised by Ben Harris since 2016, including capital raised at previous investment firms, by the weighted average equity ratio of the investments. Data as of December 31, 2024.

4 Percentage reflects number of investments offered to investors divided by overall number of investments reviewed. Data reflects period of January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024.

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Resources & News

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December 15, 2024

Is Bigger Better? Not For Real Estate Funds.

For the past decade, the same real estate fund managers have been sucking up the majority of investor capital into their mega funds. In fact, only a quarter of total capital raised in recent years has gone to smaller managers (Preqin Global Real Estate Report, 2021).

But why? Are larger funds better or are they simply more convenient to invest in? In 2017, Preqin, the premier database for private real estate, conducted a comprehensive study to help answer this question.

According to the report, smaller funds (less than $500 million) consistently outperform their larger counterparts. From 2005 to 2014, small funds generated a median return of 10.9%, while mid-sized funds ($500 – 999 million) generated 9.1% and larger funds ($1 billion or more) earned 6.9%. This study proves that larger size is not necessarily correlated with larger profits, and investors should be taking a closer look.

How do the top and bottom performers compare?

Smaller funds in the top quartile generated a median net IRR of 15.8%, outperforming the 12.4% and 12.0% median net IRRs produced by mid-sized and large funds, respectively. No one year buoyed the overall median net returns either. Top quartile small funds outperformed top quartile larger funds in 8 of the 10 vintages examined.

Even the worst of the smaller funds outperformed the worst of the larger funds. Smaller funds in the bottom quartile earned a medium net IRR of 6.2%, beating the 2.8% return generated by both mid-sized and larger bottom quartile funds.

Do smaller funds mean more risk?

Generally speaking, yes. Smaller funds are more volatile than larger funds. While these funds typically demonstrate higher net IRRs than larger funds, the returns typically have a higher standard deviation around them.

Is the risk worth the reward?

According to Preqin data, the best risk/return profile is offered by smaller funds. The higher variability around returns is worth it to generate the highest absolute returns.

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If larger funds underperform smaller funds, why do they attract the most capital?

Most capital invested in private real estate funds comes from institutional investors (pension plans, endowments, sovereign wealth funds) who often allocate between $100 million and $1 billion per fund. These institutional investors usually have internal governors preventing them from being less than 40% of the capital in any one fund. This means they are not even able to consider most funds that are smaller than $500 million. This is one primary reason why large funds attract more capital than smaller funds – big begets big.

Secondly, it is more convenient to invest in larger funds than smaller funds. It takes more work to conduct due diligence on a smaller fund manager because their track records are usually more limited than larger fund managers. Often, the institutional investment teams do not view the extra work to be worth it. After all, no one gets fired for recommending an investment in a large, trusted fund that other institutions are investing in as well.

The advantage for private investors.

Private investors do not have rules preventing them from investing in certain funds. Because of this, they have a much larger investment universe. After all, there are hundreds of small funds in the United States and only a small handful of large funds.

And private investors do not have to worry about losing their job for making a less “safe” investment decision. Private investors can take calculated risks to grow their own wealth instead of just investing in what is most convenient.

How can Uncommon Capital Group help?

We realize it is difficult for private investors to access differentiated, smaller funds, let alone determine which ones are better than others. Our team of industry experts has worked at private real estate firms for nearly a decade. We have deep relationships with talented fund managers across the country, resulting in unrivaled access that we share with our community of private investors.

We are also skilled at analyzing real estate offerings, allowing us to curate opportunities with strong risk-return profiles that are structured fairly and transparently for our community.

More Resources & News

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Resources

Are Your Real Estate Investments Ready for the AI Revolution?

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News

What’s Up with Industrial Leasing?

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Resources & News

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Resources
Apr 24, 2024

Are Your Real Estate Investments Ready for the AI Revolution?

In 2013, Starwood Capital raised eyebrows when they went all in on a new investment strategy. That year the firm acquired 7 regional shopping malls for $1 billion. Over the next two years, they gobbled up another $6 billion.



Fast forward – the esteemed firm has since defaulted on most of its loans and lost control of its mall portfolio.

What went wrong? Starwood believed weakening mall performance created an opportunity to buy assets at a discount in what was still a core property sector at the time. However, they underestimated the trend of e-commerce. In 2013, online sales were still less than 10% of total retail sales and Amazon’s market cap was only $125 billion (vs. ~25%1 and ~$1.9 trillion today).

How do I know all of this? Because I worked at Starwood as a young financial analyst while the firm went on its buying spree.

It was an important lesson to learn early in my career. Never underestimate a technological trend and its potential impact on physical space (aka real estate).

Today, that technological trend is artificial intelligence. As an avid daily user of AI, I believe its future impact should be taken seriously by all real estate investors.

What is AI?

Most of us really only became familiar with AI in November 2022 when ChatGPT was first released to the public. Immediately, people were awed by the text and image generation capabilities (fyi - I used DALL·E to make the futuristic image for this post in less than 10 seconds).

But AI is more than just Siri on steroids. As an engine that can “learn” when fed reams of data and information, AI is already being “trained” in specific and complicated disciplines, like law and medicine. It doesn’t just answer email using your tone and humor. It can write legal briefs citing case law that would have taken hours for lawyers to dig up. Even mental health professionals are starting to use AI to diagnose and counsel people in crisis.

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The future is already here.

You don’t need to look too hard to see AI’s impacts on businesses already. Swedish financial technology company Klarna said its AI assistant is so good it can do the work of 700 of its customer service pros. They then laid off those 700 workers, and estimate the move will improve profits by $40 million in 2024.

Filmmaker Tyler Perry was so awed by AI he changed his mind about building an $800 million studio expansion in Atlanta. Perry explained, "I don’t have to put a set on my lot. I can sit in an office and do this with a computer."

And the companies leading the growth of AI see massive expansion. Microsoft and OpenAI are planning a new $100 billion data center to house their new supercomputer. The facility could require its own nuclear power plant to operate it.

Which real estate sectors will be impacted the most?

Here are the winners and losers that I expect will come into focus in the years ahead.

Winners

  • Data Centers: The clear beneficiary as AI demands more and more computational power and storage. This was already a healthy sector, but is expected to have sustained growth as AI gains widespread adoption.
  • Industrial: If AI speeds e-commerce and increases profitability, demand for warehouses should continue to grow.
  • Life Sciences: Many believe AI will supercharge the development of new drugs and other discoveries. This trend is likely to increase demand for lab and production space.

Losers

  • Office: The most obvious casualty of AI. Already the new technology is replacing jobs and is likely to continue doing so. Demand for office space is naturally going to weaken.
  • Retail: E-commerce had already been growing, and any efficiencies it generates will only further fuel that. Unfortunately, that likely means more bad news for overall retail space demand.
  • Multifamily: This one is more controversial, but Cohen & Steers has theorized “displacement of jobs could lead to lower employment and reduce wage growth”2. I worry about this as well. If this happens, who will rent all the high-end apartments across the country?

Bottom line

Anyone who has toyed around with AI, or perhaps even implemented it into everyday life, knows it’s the real deal. And ChatGPT only launched less than a year and half ago.

Over the next few years, stories like the ones about Klarna and Tyler Perry will be the norm, not the exception. That’s why it’s so important to future-proof your new real estate allocations now, as your investments will undoubtedly be impacted by the rapid adoption of AI.

Starwood, for one, seems determined not to underestimate new technology again. In fact, they recently formed Starwood Digital Ventures to invest billions in the asset class set to benefit the most from AI’s growth.





1 Digital Commerce 360

2 Cohen & Steers: How will AI shape the real estate investing landscape?

More Resources & News

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Resources

Is Bigger Better? Not For Real Estate Funds.

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News

What’s Up with Industrial Leasing?

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Resources & News

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Mar 06, 2024

What’s Up with Industrial Leasing?

The Latest

To state the obvious, industrial leasing has slowed. And in some corners of the market, leasing basically ground to a halt over the past year. Yes, it’s true the industrial sector has been faring much better than other property types. After all, 2023 was yet another year of double-digit national rent growth. But the asset class certainly hasn’t been immune to macroeconomic headwinds.

Why has leasing slowed? And is it time for investors to panic? Not quite – here’s why.

What happened?

On the back of e-commerce, industrial leasing experienced unimpeded growth for over a decade, and reached a crescendo during the pandemic. The recent annual leasing totals from a new CBRE report1 are pretty astounding:

2019: 560 million SF; 2020: 720M SF; 2021: 1 billion SF

Woah, that escalated quickly. After a then-record year in 2019, leasing activity nearly doubled only two short years later. This dynamic, of course, encouraged developers to build a record number of new buildings. However, demand still overwhelmed new supply, and national vacancy rates continued to hover around a remarkably low 3%.

Now, let’s fast forward. In 2022, leasing “dropped” to 865 million SF before declining further to 790 million SF in 2023. How come? Because tenants became cautious about making major capital investments, such as opening new logistics facilities, while faced with rising financing costs and economic uncertainties, per Green Street2. Weaker demand was especially pronounced among big box users. Industrial sector pros have been calling the trend of recent lower leasing levels “a return to normal” relative pre-pandemic years.

The issue though is while leasing has cooled, supply has not.

Another 156.3 million SF of industrial facilities were completed in Q4 2023. That’s the second highest quarterly total on record (only behind the 173.2 million SF delivered in the previous quarter), according to Cushman & Wakefield3. While tenants can wake up one morning and decide they want to hold off on making a lease decision, developers don’t have this luxury. They need to finish what they started, which is why new projects that broke ground in the first half of 2023 are still being delivered, even though tenant demand has paused.

This has caused the national vacancy rate to creep up to 5.2%, up from the boom-market lows but still below the 10-year pre-pandemic historical average.

What happens next?

The market needs to digest more new supply over the first half of 2024. That means vacancy rates will likely tick higher. However, in the second half of the year, new deliveries will drop off a cliff. CBRE points out new construction starts have declined for five straight quarters due to market uncertainty and a difficult lending environment.

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Source: CBRE Research Q4 2023



As for tenant demand, macroeconomics will determine what happens next. If inflation continues to stay low, the Fed cuts interest rates, and consumer demand stays strong, then tenants are expected to jump off the sidelines. If inflation ends up being sticky, interest rates stay high, and consumer demand weakens, then it could be another slow year for industrial leasing activity.

In 2025 and beyond though, Cushman & Wakefield and CBRE both agree most Tier 1 industrial markets are expected to be undersupplied. The historical growth engines for the sector still remain – ecommerce growth and supply chain resiliency.

CBRE says e-commerce still only accounts for 23% of non-auto or gas related retail sales and is expected to grow to 26% in the next few years and 34% in 10 years. More goods sold online will result in more demand for industrial space to deliver goods to consumers at increasingly faster speeds.

Separately, companies are embracing onshoring and nearshoring after the pandemic shined a light on significant vulnerabilities in our nation’s supply chains. Other recent supply chain issues include the Suez Canal obstruction, Russia-Ukraine War, Panama Canal drought, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and others.

Helping matters, the U.S. government has bolstered supply chain resiliency by pouring tens of billions of dollars into the cause through the Inflation Reduction and CHIPS acts. This will undoubtedly have significant positive upstream and downstream impacts on demand for industrial real estate.

Bottom line

Yes, industrial leasing has been taking a temporary breather. But it’s a matter of “when”, not “if” tenants will start signing more leases at new, modern buildings. E-commerce, onshoring and nearshoring will make sure of that.

In the meantime, investment in the sector will favor a nuanced approach. Smaller assets will be attractive, plus larger deals in select, underserved markets.





1 CBRE: The State of the U.S. Industrial & Logistics Market - January 2024

2 Green Street: U.S. Industrial Outlook - January 2024

3 Cushman & Wakefield: Industrial Q4 2023 Marketbeat

More Resources & News

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Resources

Is Bigger Better? Not For Real Estate Funds.

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Resources

Are Your Real Estate Investments Ready for the AI Revolution?

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Connected. Curated. Confidential.