(Read more on the debt and equity markets and the multifamily market .)

[IMGCAP(1)]GARLAND, TX-Industry leader Ray Wirta and a decade-long friend are using Dallas/Fort Worth as the launch pad for a new proprietary web-based investment vehicle, Nexregen. The program, pointed at 100 US cities, targets retail and multifamily investments in the $10-million bracket for the "next real estate generation of investors."

Wirta and Harold Hofer, with Newport Beach, CA as their home base, have spent the past two years laying the groundwork for Nexregen's on-line sales to begin, an offering for shares in commercial assets at $2,500 and $5,000 buy-ins. Wirta, former CEO for CB Richard Ellis and its current vice chair, is replaying his start in the industry when he invested $2,500 into real estate in college and later collected a profit from its sale.

[IMGCAP(2)]After six to eight months of evaluating listings nationwide, the partners' first and only acquisition to date has been the 148,870-sf Firewheel Village at 3178 Lavon Dr. in Garland, a fully leased, six-tenant shopping center on 14.5 acres bought in May for about $13.48 million or $91 per sf. Now, its shares are for sale.