Investing in Private Real Estate in Switzerland: Access, Qualified Investor Status & the Thresholds

Real estate investments fall along two axes: listed vs. non-listed (private) and direct vs. indirect. Listed vehicles — such as Swiss real estate funds on the SIX exchange or REITs abroad — trade daily with publicly visible prices and can be entered in small amounts. Private real estate markets, by contrast, include direct stakes in development projects, club deals among a handful of qualified investors, and funds reserved for qualified investors only. They are not publicly distributed, entry is through an individual subscription, and liquidity is structurally limited.

The main structural forms are: direct ownership (purchase of a property or a stake in one); club deal (a small group of investors co-financing a project within a shared investment structure); private real estate fund (a non-publicly-approved collective vehicle offered only to qualified investors); and structured participation (for example a tokenised participation right under the DLT Act). Each structure has different holding, liquidity and subscription requirements. A detailed comparison of these structures is covered in the companion article on fund vs. direct vs. club deal.

The path into a private real estate investment in Switzerland follows a fixed sequence — none of these stages can be skipped, because each one enables the next. First comes classification under FinSA: the financial service provider assigns each client to one of three segments — retail (private) client, professional client, or institutional client. Only professional and institutional clients (and retail clients who have lawfully opted out) may receive non-publicly-distributed offerings. Classification is provider-specific and does not automatically carry over to another platform or bank.

Next comes the eligibility check: before an investor sees a single number about a specific opportunity, the platform confirms and records the entitlement — the classification segment, AML screening, and, where required, the written opting-out declaration. Only then does the digital dealroom open: the investor gains access to watermarked documents, reviews the transaction through their own due diligence, and submits a bid or indication of interest if they wish to proceed. This is followed by subscription and onboarding (contract execution, payment settlement) and then ongoing reporting after closing. The sequence is regulatory logic, not administrative procedure: classification must precede disclosure.

The most common question is: from what level of assets am I considered a qualified investor? The answer derives from Swiss law — not from any individual platform's requirements. The Financial Services Act (FinSA, Art. 5) and the Financial Services Ordinance (FinSO) govern who may be treated as a professional client. "Qualified investor" within the meaning of the Collective Investment Schemes Act (CISA) is essentially co-extensive with professional or institutional client status under FinSA.

For private individuals wishing to opt out into professional status, the law provides two routes — these thresholds are statutory requirements under FinSA Art. 5 / FinSO, not OwnMore criteria: First route: the client credibly declares that, based on personal training, education or comparable experience in the financial sector, they possess the knowledge required to understand the risks of the investments, and holds financial assets of at least CHF 500’000. Second route: the client holds financial assets of at least CHF 2’000’000 — with no separate knowledge test. Both thresholds refer to "financial assets" in the statutory sense; what counts as such is defined in the law and ordinances and may be subject to interpretation. Always verify against the current legal text or with qualified advice — this article is general information, not legal advice.

Per-se professional clients — without any opt-out — include: public entities with professional treasury operations, occupational pension schemes, companies with professional treasury operations, large companies (two of three thresholds: balance sheet CHF 20m, turnover CHF 40m, equity CHF 2m), and private investment structures with professional treasury operations (typical family-office holding vehicles). Institutional clients (banks, securities firms, insurance companies, prudentially supervised financial intermediaries) form the highest segment. All of these categories are qualified investors under CISA.

The three segments differ not only in what they can access but also in which protection rules the financial service provider must apply. Retail clients receive the fullest regulatory protection: extensive disclosure obligations, appropriateness and suitability assessments, and the Basic Information Sheet (BIS) for many products. This protection has a cost: access to non-publicly-approved investments is restricted or unavailable.

Professional clients accept a reduced level of protection — through classification or opting out — in exchange for broader access. Many non-publicly-distributed collective investment schemes and structured private-market investments are available exclusively to this segment (and the institutional segment). Institutional clients face the lightest regulatory overlay and the broadest product universe, because the law presumes the highest level of sophistication and loss-bearing capacity for them.

A critical point: classification determines whether an offering may lawfully reach you — it is not a quality judgment about you as a person and not a recommendation to make any specific investment. Suitability and appropriateness are separate assessments that still apply where relevant.

Private real estate investments demand institutional discipline in four areas. Illiquidity: unlike listed securities, there is generally no liquid secondary market. Committed capital is tied up for the life of the project or fund; early exit is often unavailable or possible only at a significant discount. Capital obligations: where capital is drawn in tranches (capital calls), unfunded commitment must be available at all times — an obligation that must appear in liquidity planning.

Due diligence: private markets provide no daily price discovery. Investors must review property and structural documents themselves or with professional advisers — appraisals, lease agreements, planning law, capital structure. The quality of due diligence matters more in illiquid markets than in liquid ones, because errors cannot be corrected by a quick sale. Diversification: a single private-market investment is concentrated and typically has low correlation with other markets — a characteristic that implies both opportunity and risk. Broadly diversified portfolios are generally better positioned than single-asset bets. This article is educational and not investment advice; for your own situation, consult qualified financial and legal advisers.

OwnMore is a real estate and private-market investment execution platform (BloomDigital GmbH, Switzerland). The platform is designed to map the described access path — classification, eligibility check, dealroom, subscription, reporting — as one continuous, auditable sequence. Every material step is recorded as an immutable entry in an append-only SHA-256 audit chain, so the record of eligibility, due-diligence documents and contract signatures remains available for later review.

OwnMore is pre-launch. Concretely: there is no track record, no closed transactions, and no historical AUM or return figures that OwnMore could report as proprietary performance. Securities custody is being onboarded with regulated partners and will be announced once effective. The FinSA thresholds described in this article are statutory requirements — OwnMore operationalises them but does not set them. This article contains no OwnMore-specific return promises or growth projections.