Colorful epic aerial panorama of San Francisco skyline downtown with business building skyscraper and waterfront at twilight in California, USA.Prasit Photo | Moment | Getty ImagesA version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.Private investment firms of the ultra wealthy are snapping up domestic real estate as the market’s recovery continues to stall, family-office investors told Inside Wealth. While persistently high interest rates and geopolitical conflicts have many investors sitting on the sidelines, family offices can afford to make opportunistic bets as they invest for the long haul.Travis King, CEO of Realm, said the collective of some 100 families has invested about $100 million in Northern California real estate in the past six months. Realm has seized on bargains, such as buying an office property in San Francisco at about 21% of what it last traded for and what it could cost to build it today. “We looked at it said, ‘Hey, San Francisco has been beaten up, but we believe that tech is going to continue to be a very robust environment, and we continue to believe that that’s going to be the main driver of the U.S. economy going forward. We don’t think San Francisco is going anywhere,'” he said. “It seems like that call is accurate, based on the fact that we’re now trading paper on either leases or purchase and sale agreements on several of these properties.”King said some families are nervous about deploying their money during these turbulent times, but that more are interested in taking advantage of low valuations.”It’s a difficult time to live through, just as a citizen, but it’s an interesting time as an investor, because that’s the time that makes it the best pricing,” he said.Matthew Cohen, partner at Declaration Partners, the investment firm anchored by Carlyle billionaire David Rubenstein’s family office, said the firm’s long investment horizon allows it to seize opportunities that traditional asset managers cannot. Declaration Part …
