Questions on how to launch a real estate investment fund

I'm a college student who goes to an SEC school (one of the good ones) and offers a real estate major. 2 friends and I are trying to start a Real Estate investment fund at our school, I've done some research recently on the Real Estate investment funds at UT Austin, Michigan, Indiana, UNC, etc. I'm impressed with how they do direct property investments into physical real estate as an LP.

Has anyone had experience being part of a real estate investment fund at their university or started one on their own, that could opine with advice?

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This is a long game, but it is worth it.

Your university has an endowment, and that endowment probably has an allocation to real estate. There is a group of people making decisions around those allocations and strategies... find out who they are through the dean of your college (guessing business) and have them make an intro so you can tell them you want to start the club. Tell said person you'd like to learn about how they view real estate so you can frame a fund similarly. Now they've bought into you because you want to hear them speak and think like them - actually listen to them. After all of this craft a business plan and pitch it to the dean and the endowment person, ask them if the club could write a quarterly analysis of the real estate allocation for the next year and present it in advance of each IC meeting (could differ, the board I'm on does quarterly).

Then you've got a group of influential champions with good connections, and a year of track record for thoughts on the market, make a pitch deck for alumni and ask your centers of influence to help find investors and let the first three be advisors to the fund.

I swear if some undergrad told me that story in an interview, I'd offer before they stood up from the chair.

 

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