what does “private equity structures” mean?
"Private equity firms have a unique structure: The general partners (GP's) of the firm create funds and manage the investments of those funds.  Limited partners (LP's) contribute the capital to the funds, pay fees to the GP's, and then make money when the funds' assets grow. I believe the article is saying that ultra high net worth individuals participate in the real estate market by hiring someone to act as a general partner and manage the real estate assets.  They and their friends contribute the cash and get shares in the resulting fund. Usually this GP/LP structure is used when the funds purchase or invest in private companies, which is why it is referred to as ""private equity structure,"" but the same structure can be used to purchase and manage pools of real estate or any other investment asset."
"Take a look at any king; they got to do what they wanted with the state money which pretty much always included attacking their enemies using their fortunes which look very much like ordinary people's taxes.    Don't like that?  How about the renaissance city-states.  They hired private armies -- the Swiss mainly -- who then decided which side had paid the most money, that side won.    Explicitly, There's also the Roman late republic, where private armies battled for just about a century, killing about 1/3 of the men.    Really, though, what does ""private army"" mean?  There are taxpayers and taxpayers.  Your security will have to be handled somehow.  Do you think calling something a ""fee"", perhaps, changes the fundamental nature of the payment?  Do you imagine that you can live outside of society, not pay the ""fee"" and somehow be safe?  Again, explicitly, how are you going to handle security?" It depends on your cost structure and knowledge of the exchanges. It could be optimal to make a manual exchange selection so long as it's cheaper to do so. For brokers with trade fees, this is a lost cause because the cost of the trade is already so high that auto routing will be no cheaper than manual routing. For brokers who charge extra to manually route, this could be a good policy if the exchange chosen has very high rebates.  This does not apply to equities because they are so cheap, but there are still a few expensive option exchanges. This all presumes that one's broker shares exchange rebates which nearly all do not. If one has direct access to the exchanges, they are presumably doing this already. To do this effectively, one needs: For anyone trading with brokers without shared rebates or who does not have knowledge of the exchange prices and their liquidities, it's best to auto route. "Is all interest on a first time home deductible on taxes? What does   that even mean? If I pay $14,000 in taxes will My taxes be $14,000   less. Will my taxable income by that much less? If you use the standard deduction in the US (assuming United States), you will have 0 benefit from a mortgage.   If you itemize deductions, then your interest paid (not principal) and your property tax paid is deductible and reduces your income for tax purposes.  If your marginal tax rate is 25% and you pay $10000 in interest and property tax, then when you file your taxes, you'll owe (or get a refund) of $2500 (marginal tax rate * (amount of interest + property tax)). I have heard the term ""The equity on your home is like a bank"". What   does that mean? I suppose I could borrow using the equity in my home   as collateral? If you pay an extra $500 to your mortgage, then your equity in your house goes up by $500 as well.   When you pay down the principal by $500 on a car loan (depreciating asset) you end up with less than $500 in value in the car because the car's value is going down.   When you do the same in an appreciating asset, you still have that money available to you though you either need to sell or get a loan to use that money. Are there any other general benefits that would drive me from paying   $800 in rent, to owning a house? There are several other benefits. These are a few of the positives, but know that there are many negatives to home ownership and the cost of real estate transactions usually dictate that buying doesn't make sense until you want to stay put for 5-7 years.   A shorter duration than that usually are better served by renting.  The amount of maintenance on a house you own is almost always under estimated by new home owners." I think you have to refer to it (i.e. a hedge fund) as more of a legal structure rather than from an investment perspective. Hedge Funds are generally private investment vehicles that require large capital contributions (whether the hedge fund is set up as a 3c(7) or a 3c(1) structure). Doesn't matter what the relative investment strategy is (long only, long/short, levered, distressed debt, model defined, etc.)  3(c)(7) = qualified purchaser status = Min worth of $25,000,000 3(c)(1) = accredited investor status = less than qualified purchaser status, but still requires certain income limits.  Just my two cents. Activist Investor is the entrenched capitalists fake news meme. Trump wants to pass a law that says shareholders don't even get a vote until they pass a certain threshold on ownership % of a company so they can keep all the little people from having any say. Ownership isn't really ownership unless you're rich I guess. Democracy bad! Freedom! America! You're right.   That's a large part of what I talked about in my post, I just didn't call it that.  The other provision of Title III (aka CROWDFUND Act) is that all the equity has to be purchased through a brokerage or funding portal. I mentioned those in another post in this thread. I don't really see it that way. Both kinds of companies are trying to maximize return on investment. Both play a vital role in the economy. And private equity companies like Bain that do a little of both blur the line even further. Private Equity is simply some type of an investment company, which is owned in a way not accessible to the public. ie: Warren Buffet runs Berkshire Hatheway, which is an investment company which itself is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. This means that anyone can buy shares in the company, and own a small fraction of it. If Warren Buffet owned all the shares of Berkshire Hatheway, it would be a Private Equity company. Note that 'Equity' refers to the ownership of the company itself; a private investment company may simply buy Bonds (which are a form of Debt), in which case, they would not be technically considered a 'Private Equity' company. A Hedge Fund is a very broad term which I don't believe has significant meaning. Technically, it means something along the lines of an investment fund (either public or private) which attempts to hedge the risks of its portfolio, by carefully considering what type of investments it purchased. This refers back to the meaning of 'hedge', ie: 'hedging your bets'. In my opinion, 'Hedge Fund' is not meaningfully different from 'investment fund' or other similar terms. It is just the most popular way to refer to this type of industry at the present time.  You can see the trend of using the term 'investment fund' vs 'hedge fund' using this link: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=hedge%20fund,investment%20fund Note that the high-point of the use of 'hedge fund' occurred on October 2008, right at the peak of the global financial crisis. The term evokes a certain image of 'high finance' / 'wall-street types' that may exploit various situations (such as tax legislation, or 'secret information') for their own gain. Without a clear definition, however, it is a term without much meaning. If you do a similar comparison between 'hedge fund' and 'private equity', you can see that the two correlate very closely; I believe the term 'private equity' is similarly misused to generally refer to 'investment bankers'. However in that case, 'private equity' has a more clear definition on its own merits.