At the close of 2025, Blue Owl Real Estate Exchange (OREX) ranked sixth among 50 active DST sponsors. According to a March 15 Mountain Dell report, the firm raised $341 million for the year, a figure that amounted to roughly 4% of a market that collectively brought in $8.41 billion in equity, a 49% increase from the $5.66 billion raised in 2024.
By March 15, 2026, just over 10 weeks later, Blue Owl had climbed to third among 59 sponsors. Its year-to-date raise of $207 million represented 11% market share. Only Ares Real Estate Exchange at $432 million and Hines Real Estate Exchange at $264 million placed higher.
That repositioning, accomplished in a single quarter against a field that had grown by nine sponsors, warrants a closer look at the product and distribution factors behind it.
Changes in the DST Market
Delaware Statutory Trusts (“DST”) allow investors to hold fractional, passive interests in institutional-grade real estate while qualifying as “like-kind” replacement property under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. Investors who sell appreciated real estate can defer capital gains taxes by rolling proceeds into a DST.
The market has existed for over two decades but changed materially since 2022 with the arrival of large alternative asset managers. Blackstone, Ares, Hines, and Brookfield each entered the space with institutional underwriting, diversified multi-property portfolios, and UPREIT pathway structures that altered the exit calculus for investors.”Fortress Investment Group also launched a 1031 platform in March 2026.
Total equity raised in the first 10 weeks of 2026 reached $1.89 billion as of March 15. That pace, if sustained, would surpass 2025’s record full-year figure.
The OREX Structure
Blue Owl’s OREX programs are designed to feed into Blue Owl Real Estate Net Lease Trust (ORENT), the firm’s non-traded REIT. The pathway from DST to REIT runs through an option held by Blue Owl’s NLT Operating Partnership: after investors have held their beneficial interests in a closed DST offering for at least two years, the Operating Partnership may acquire those interests by exchanging them for OP units or cash, at its sole discretion.
Investors who receive OP units defer taxes indefinitely and gain exposure to the REIT’s broader pool of net-leased commercial assets. For a financial advisor placing a client’s 1031 exchange proceeds, it’s an important distinction: the client is not locked into a specific asset’s exit timeline.
ORENT delivered a gross return of 13.4% and a net return of 10.9% for 2025 on Class I shares, substantially ahead of the FTSE REIT index total return of 2.3% for the year. Across Blue Owl’s broader net lease strategy composite, the firm reported gross returns of 13.1% and net returns of 9.8% for the same period, per the Q4 earnings disclosure. ORENT ranked as the top net fundraiser among non-traded REITs in 2025, with inflows up 55% year over year.
The second differentiator is the absence of debt. Blue Owl’s OREX V DST, an industrial portfolio covering Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, carries a 0% loan-to-value ratio with a projected first-year return of 5.08% as of the March 15 Mountain Dell report. Multi-family DSTs, which dominate the broader market by program count, averaged LTVs between 38% and 55% in the same report, with projected returns generally below 4.5%. When refinancing conditions are uncertain, a zero-leverage structure carries a different risk profile.
Where Blue Owl Sits in the Field
Of the top three sponsors, Ares leads with $432 million raised year-to-date across two major offerings; its recently launched ADREX Diversified 11 DST is sized at $476 million. Hines holds second on the strength of its $618 million HREX 9 multi-family program. Blue Owl’s $207 million comes primarily from OREX V industrial and the near-fully-subscribed OREX IV retail program, which by mid-March had only $885,000 remaining from a $247 million offering after 188 days on market. Of the top three, Blue Owl’s concentration across industrial and retail net lease at zero leverage contrasts with Hines’s multi-family focus and Ares’s broader asset-type diversification.
The top three are operating at a scale distinct from the rest of the field. Sponsors ranked fourth through sixth (ExchangeRight, Inland Private Capital, and Cove Capital) each hold between 3% and 7% of year-to-date market share.
The Distribution Factor
Market share in the DST space is also a function of who is placing the product. DSTs reach investors through registered investment advisors and independent financial professionals who rely on sponsor credibility and program track record when making placement decisions. Blue Owl’s Real Assets platform held $80.6 billion in AUM as of the fourth quarter of 2025, and the firm operates a private wealth platform that generated $17.3 billion in equity fundraising across all products for the year. That infrastructure gives OREX access to advisor relationships most regional DST sponsors cannot replicate.
On Blue Owl’s Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO Marc Lipschultz described record fundraising across both institutional and private wealth channels. The Real Assets segment raised $6.1 billion in equity during the fourth quarter, the highest total among Blue Owl’s three business segments.
The DST program, a specific subset of that activity, benefits from the compliance infrastructure and advisor relationships built around ORENT and other non-traded vehicles already in distribution.
Gaining Ground
Program count in the market grew from 89 at year-end 2025 to 99 by March 15, meaning more offerings competed for advisor attention even as total equity raised accelerated.
Gaining ground under those conditions requires a distribution network capable of moving capital at scale, a product structure that addresses specific advisor and client needs, and the institutional track record that justifies placing tax-deferred capital with a given sponsor over the many alternatives.
The first quarter’s data confirm that Blue Owl Capital has assembled a DST platform capable of competing at the top of a market that, by the look of the inflows, is only getting larger.
