Members of the high net worth peer network Tiger 21 are still heavily fixated on real estate investments, in part because they often “gravitate to what they know,” said Michael Sonnenfeldt, chairman and founder.

Investments in real estate among wealthy Tiger 21 members nudged up by 2 percentage points in the first three months of 2015 to reach 29 per cent – its highest reading since 2007, according to the organization's latest Asset Allocation Report.

Tiger 21 acknowledged that its members have long had a higher-than-average exposure to real estate due largely to the membership profile, which reflects the fact that real estate has been a prime sector for wealth creation in recent decades.

“There is no doubt that some of the greatest accumulations of wealth over the last decades have been in real estate and technology, but for our members that created their wealth in technology, it was more frequently the liquidity event from the sale of a business that brought them to Tiger 21, while members who created their wealth in real estate were able to continue to own portions or all of their portfolio, even as they join Tiger 21,” Sonnenfeldt said.

In a separate Tiger 21 poll recently, half of its members said they plan to boost their allocation to real estate in the second quarter of 2015, while 38 per cent plan on maintaining their current allocation and only 12 per cent plan on decreasing it.

The only other asset category in which many members plan to increase their holdings (relative to maintaining or decreasing allocation) was private equity: an equal percentage (44 per cent) anticipate increasing and maintaining their exposure to that asset class, and only 12 per cent plan on reducing it.

Another notable allocation in the first quarter Asset Allocation Report, Tiger 21 said, is fixed income, which is down 1 percentage point to 11 per cent – its lowest allocation level since 2007. Sonnenfeldt said members are generally cautious on this asset class because of the low returns and risk of interest rate hikes lowering bond values.

Commenting on latest member sentiment overall, Sonnenfeldt said members have kept their public equity exposure steady over the last 24 quarters. They have shown restraint and, anecdotally, have prepared for the inevitable correction in the market, he said.

“Members have seen more tangible value in private equity, where they can roll up their shirtsleeves and be directly involved with and in the critical information flow about the challenges and potential of the companies they invest in.”

Real estate has been equally attractive for some of the same reasons, he added. “Of course, with many fund managers and world class traders as members, we do have some members holding cash in order to be positioned to buy inexpensive stock during the next downturn.”

Tiger 21 stands for The Investment Group for Enhanced Results in the 21st Century. Its 300 members collectively manage more than $30 billion in total assets and are entrepreneurs, inventors and top executives.