For New York’s real estate players, the lending thaw turned into a flood.
Real estate lending roared back for a second straight year, as banks and private lenders ramped up financing amid signs of a rebound in the commercial real estate market. The top 20 lenders doled out a combined $36 billion in loans over the past 12 months, up 57 percent from a year earlier, according to an analysis by The Real Deal. Credit flowed freely, extending last year’s post-pandemic bounceback.
The three top lenders stayed the same, but they originated a combined $15 billion in loans, up 60 percent from $9.4 billion a year earlier. Wells Fargo climbed from second place to the top of the rankings with about $6.3 billion in new lending, up from $2.7 billion a year ago. JPMorgan Chase fell one spot to second place, with $5.6 billion in loans, up from $4 billion. Citibank kept its spot in third but increased lending to about $3.1 billion, from $2.7 billion.
To assess the biggest lenders in New York City real estate, TRD examined mortgages recorded by the city from August 2025 to July 2026, and compared them with the year before.
The rankings only include documents classified as mortgages — not those recorded as “agreements” — in city property records. The total number of loans issued by the top 20 lenders was up 2.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the data.
Traditional banks continued to dominate, with a handful of alternative and nonbank lenders among the ranks. Private construction and bridge lender S3 Capital dropped one spot to eighth, while increasing lending from $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion. Apollo Global Management leaped onto the list with $1.2 billion in lending.
High rents and strong condo projections kept the pipeline of multifamily projects moving.
“I think that these developers are realizing the rents are very high that they’re building to, condo projections have been strong despite anything that’s going on in the marketplace, and to them, the project still works,” said S3’s head of origination Shawn Safdie. “For us in the debt position, if we have to take our wrench out and tweak numbers and be more conservative to make the deals work, and if it still works for them, we’ll make the transaction.”
In its largest deal tracked by TRD, S3 provided a $131.5 million construction loan for Edge Property Group’s 276-unit student housing development in Washington Heights.
“Developers are dreamers — they have to keep building,” Safdie said. “I think that their optimism eclipses any temporary blips in the market.”
The largest overall lending deal during the time period tracked by TRD was the $1.2 billion construction loan for BXP’s office development at 343 Madison Avenue next to Grand Central Terminal. Wells Fargo led the financing package, which also carried support from BofA Securities, Bank of New York Mellon and JPMorgan Chase.
“The underlying fundamentals were all very good last year,” said Chris Gregg, division head of New York CRE for Valley National Bank, which moved up one spot in the rankings to tenth place, and increased its lending to $1.18 billion from $750 million. The bank provided a $69 million loan to Atlas Capital for its purchase of an East Village rental building at 250 Houston Street, its largest deal included in the rankings.
“We have record rent levels, condos selling well, the office market recovering, retail is very stable throughout the city,” Gregg said. “That made the projects very financeable, and clients were out acquiring and deciding to move forward on projects.”
As the year progressed, so did interest-rate volatility. Financing picked up early in the year as the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield generally declined through late last year, though it edged back up in November 2025. But yields spiked in 2026, slowing deal activity in recent months, a trend that could persist into 2027.
“Rates are so volatile, and for a period they were calm,” Gregg said. “Customers were moving ahead. We were pretty active to start the year, and I think as a lender, we’d rather see slow and steady, even if rates are higher, rather than this volatility.”
The multifamily sector once again accounted for the largest share of new financing deals citywide, about 18.5 percent, as developers adjusted to the property tax incentive programs 485x and 467m, which went into effect in January 2025. But 485x’s wage and affordability requirements that kick in at 100 units have kept most new multifamily projects on the smaller side.
A surge in ground-up mixed-use and residential projects fueled lending for S3 Capital Partners, which almost doubled its lending dollars year-over-year.
Rising construction costs are prompting some borrowers to revisit their financing, but S3’s Safdie said he hasn’t seen major shifts in clients’ business plans. For developers already in the middle of construction, the focus remains on getting projects across the finish line, even if that means reworking the capital stack. As long as tenant demand holds up and refinancing capital remains available, the market should continue to grow.
“Maybe there’s a little bit of a noise now. The dust will settle,” Safdie said. “If it settles with rates being a little higher, so be it. Everyone adjusts and keeps moving.”
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