Millionaire real estate mogul Don Peebles is putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to investing in the community.
According to Black Enterprise, Peebles is creating a $500 million fund for minority and women property developers in an effort to help them gain a stronger footing in the real estate business.
Peebles, who runs one of the nation’s top privately held real estate investment and development firms called Peebles Corp., announced the new fund at his annual residential real estate event in June.
Understanding that access to capital is one of the biggest challenges that minority developers face, the real estate mogul says, “I looked at how to address [this issue] for a number of years. No one in the country is doing this on a national level.”
He says that through co-developing and partnerships, his firm is looking closely at the different ways in which they can further support emerging minority developers. With his $500 million fund, he says he hopes his money will “help mitigate risk and help [other developers] grow quicker.”
Peebles explains that his fund will focus specifically on commercial and multifamily affordable housing projects that range between $10 million and $70 million. To ensure that these developments have hands-on support, Peebles says he will start out by investing in cities where his company already operates including South Florida, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Charlotte.
“The idea is to create this business model that shows that investing in emerging developers and investing in diversity will result in higher returns with less risk,” he says.
“It’s a very positive thing to have the developments that are taking place in communities of color, to have the projects be developed by people of color,” Peebles adds. “We see this as a win-win and an untapped market.”