I am in charge of doing due diligence on all acquisitions/refinances for a company that buys and sells strip malls on the west coast. We are the GP on all of our deals and our LPs consist of HNWI and sometime partner with institutional investors on larger deals.
Is this considered REPE?
Technically yes, but I think your firm would be more commonly classified as a "real estate investment company" or "operator".
From my experience, REPE is more commonly used to describe groups with large funds that take LP or Mezz interest in deals.
You can call yourself whatever you want, but common nomenclature within the industry is to call the LP side of the business PE, while the GP guys are developers/sponsors/operators.
The lines are definitely blurred though - JBG used to have huge PE funds but was very much a developer. I believe Hines has both sides of the business. I've seen lots of deals recently where the PE guys are trying to work their way over to the GP side and justify getting a piece of the promote in the wake of the 2/20 model coming under scrutiny.
If you’re talking to a chick you just met, then yes. If you’re talking to your classmates at business school one day, I’d use a different terminology.