About 1,000 large 401(k) plans held a private real estate vehicle at the end of 2024, by the plans’ own Form 5500 filings. But the plans and the dollars sit in different places.

Most of the plans got there through a platform default: an insurer’s real estate account that comes with the recordkeeper’s menu (Principal and TIAA between them, roughly 900 plans and a bit over $1B, about $1M a plan).

Most of the dollars sit in about two dozen very large plans that built their own real-asset option and put a bank property trust or a PGIM/PRISA feeder inside it: about $3B, well over $100M a plan.

Fewer than 100 plans chose a private real estate fund on their own rather than taking what the platform offered.

The insight for anyone building a private real estate product for DC: the committees that said yes did it through an insurer account or a bank trust sitting inside a daily-valued menu option. The wrapper did the work. Might also be of interest to Defined Contribution Real Estate Council, Inc. and Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA). More info: info@axiomaticdata.com.

Originally posted on LinkedIn.