Family Offices: Where Did The Money Originate

I presume a lot of us on here dream about having our own family office one day. I figured it might be a good thread to share how the older generations amassed the wealth to be able to have a family office you work in.

I'll start:

Principals started investing commercial real estate in the early 90s as a result of a few family members being high income earners (think dentist, doctor, lawyer). Hit a huge boom over the past number of years while continuing to deploy their high income earnings, which then snowballed. 

Effectively a good amount of money came from non-real estate income. Don't think they would have been able to do it if they didn't have that high income at the onset.

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We have two family office equity partners. One is the family that owned a minor city's media empire back when that was big business (think city newspaper and main city tv news station). The other is more of an amalgamation of historic European wealth (a car company you'd know, an alcohol company you'd know, people who literally live in castles and got invited to the royal wedding, etc.) whose families collectively want to invest in American real estate. 

Oddly enough, all cool and generous people. They don't present as stuck up or douchey at all and they get genuinely excited about silly things, like getting their own pair of safety glasses when touring the construction site. 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

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