When it comes to real estate, knowing the local market is critical to making informed investment decisions. That is why Ares has built one of the largest worldwide teams in their real estate business. “At Ares Real Estate, we have over 740 investment and operating professionals across 36 locations around the world,” said Julie Solomon, Head of Real Estate at Ares. “By having that global perspective, with very local teams, there’s so many benefits that come with that.”

Ares has continued to expand their global reach, recently opening a new office in Milan in May, 2025. That market has enhanced Ares’ access to the Italian market, and its ability to raise and invest capital across its strategies, including within European Real Estate platforms. This underscores Ares’ commitment to a highly localized approach to investing in Europe and other global markets.

The ground-level approach has real results for real estate investments. “We’re able to leverage our local relationships to source opportunities that are supported by real-time market intelligence and data,” Solomon explained. As the private market expands, managers are seeking every advantage to ensure they have the intelligence and resources necessary to quickly respond in the moment.

“Currently, we have a portfolio of over 4,000 investments,” Solomon said, “and there’s a massive amount of information that we’re able to gather to help inform our underwriting and improve the execution of our business plans.” Accessing that real-time property market and corporate trends includes multi-channel sourcing through deep connections into local property networks, as well as in-house research with a comprehensive macroeconomic, market, sub-market property, and industry outlook.

But it is about more than just being in the right place at the right time. “To layer on that, we have decades of experience within our team, and the combination of these two, I believe, makes us more competitive in the market,” Solomon said. The stable and deep real estate team has been market-cycle tested, supporting rigorous underwriting of investment opportunities in their local communities across the globe.