Leo F. Wells III founded Wells Real Estate Funds in 1984. His vision, which remains unchanged to this day, was to purchase commercial properties using a disciplined real estate investment philosophy. A year later, the Atlanta-based company successfully acquired its first commercial property in an all-cash transaction. Since that time, Wells has grown to become a national real estate investment company that has invested over $12 billion in commercial real estate for more than 300,000 investors. From humble beginnings, Wells would go on to sponsor two of the largest and highest-rated portfolios of Class-A office properties in nontraded Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) history.