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LOS ANGELES-The tenant-in-common industry has enjoyed immense success, but the industry also faces daunting challenges and a slowing rate of growth, according to speakers at Thursday's RealShare TIC. Expert after expert at the conference, which drew more than 230 attendees at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, spoke of the industry's potential but also of its lack of standardization, inefficiencies and risks.

Gary Beynon of Omni Brokerage, who delivered a report called "State of the TIC Industry Mid-year 2007," observed that many TIC sponsors "are not good at their jobs, so we have to be more efficient in how we run our marketplace." Explained Beynon, "A lot of information is available to us, and we need to be good students so we can build a strong TIC marketplace."

According to Beynon, some of the majors hurdles the TIC industry is facing are interest rate risk, the amount of money chasing real estate, managing the growth from the larger institutions entering the marketplace, overpromising and underdelivering, dealing with legislation and regulations and lack of standardization. Although these challenges may seem daunting, Beynon said that they can be overcome by, among other things, adding more properties to the marketplace, shortening syndication times and reducing fees.