By Beth Mattson-Teig | Wealth Management
Travis Smith and his three brothers were on a fishing trip back in 2008 when they decided to form an investment club—or as they dubbed it, “tribe”—that would allow them to invest in private real estate.
“We realized that the math just didn’t add up on how we were going to retire,” says Smith. All four had checked the usual boxes. They had gone to good schools, had good jobs, were making good money and were contributing to their 401ks. But the savings they had in their 401ks were volatile and slow growing. The four saw private real estate investment as a way to not only build wealth, but a way to build generational wealth for their families.
The four formed an LLC, opened a business bank account and began contributing $500 each to that account every month. Atter a year, they had enough to invest in their first commercial real estate syndication deal—a medical office building in Pasadena, Calif. That investing club was the origin of Tribevest, a collaborative, group investment platform that enables friends, family and like-minded people to organize as an investor group, pool money, and manage co-owned investments.
