Walker & Dunlop, CWCapital deal to make lending more competitive

Maryland-based real estate finance firm Walker & Dunlop’s recent agreement to pay $220 million in cash and stocks to buy CWCapital, may have repercussions for the lending landscape in the Tri-State region, the company’s CEO Willy Walker told the New York Observer.

The deal, slated to close in the next few months, will make Walker & Dunlop the second largest multi-family lender and eighth biggest commercial real estate lender in the U.S. and will put it in a stronger position to challenge more traditional New York lenders.

“New York is the largest multi-family market in the United States and as such if you’re going to be a significant player in the multifamily space you better have a good presence in Manhattan,” Walker said. “What’s kind of interesting is Walker & Dunlop and CW, for being as large lenders as both of us are in the multi-family space, both have a reasonably small footprint or platform in the Manhattan area. So it would be my expectation that this combination only adds to our both brand as well as market presence in the major markets such as New York and L.A.”

Combined, Walker & Dunlop and CW had $7.7 billion in commercial real estate loan originations last year, the Observer noted. [NYO]