For New York’s real estate players, the financing drought may finally be ending.
After two years of sharp contraction, real estate lending is showing signs of life. The top 20 lenders doled out a combined $23 billion in loans over the past 12 months, up 60 percent from a year earlier, according to an analysis by The Real Deal. Credit started to flow again as property markets stabilized and new state tax incentives went into effect.
JPMorgan Chase retained its place at the top of the rankings, with almost $4 billion in loans, up from $2.1 billion a year ago and well ahead of the competition. Wells Fargo held onto second place with about $2.7 billion in new lending, up from $1.4 billion. Citibank climbed to third, more than doubling its total to nearly $2.7 billion.
Traditional banks continued to dominate, but a handful of alternative and nonbank lenders surged into the ranks. Bank of Montreal leapt onto the list with more than $1 billion, up over 540 percent from the prior year, while Madison Realty Capital cracked the top 10, with nearly $1 billion in loans. Société Générale Financial Corporation, which did not appear on last year’s list, recorded a 17-fold increase in loan volume.
“Overall, the real estate sector has had a tough three or four years, so I think there’s finally a perception that we’re closer to the bottom than not.”
“There were a few unique opportunities this year, and in general there was a little more clarity, which led to more activity in New York City,” said Josh Zegen of Madison Realty Capital, citing the extension of the construction completion deadline for 421a projects and the adoption of the 467m tax abatement on office-to-residential conversions as a key driver in the firm’s $720 million loan for the former Pfizer headquarters building in Midtown East. “Overall, the real estate sector has had a tough three or four years, so I think there’s finally a perception that we’re closer to the bottom than not.”
To assess the industry’s biggest lenders in New York City real estate, TRD examined mortgages recorded in city records from August 2024 through July 2025 compared 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 11 percent from a year earlier, according to the data. (The ranking does not include some of the year’s blockbuster refinancings, including the $2.85 billion CMBS loan for Tishman Speyer and Henry Crown’s Hudson Yards office tower, The Spiral.)
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Despite the strong year, not all lenders are rushing back into the market. Valley National Bank, last year’s third-place lender, saw its total plunge nearly 40 percent to about $750 million. Deutsche Bank’s lending dropped by a similar margin, to just over $530 million.
The largest lending deal during the time period tracked by TRD was the $1.15 billion refi of Steve Witkoff and Len Blavatnik’s One High Line condo project, provided by JPMorgan and Tyko Capital. Corebridge Institutional Investments provided the second-largest loan, $561 million, to Scott Rechler’s RXR, Marc Holliday’s SL Green and Marc Rowan’s Apollo Global Management for the office-to-residential conversion of 5 Times Square.
Triple-digit deals doubled, from 60 to 129, year-over-year. The multifamily sector accounted for the largest share of new financing deals citywide, while office lending remained muted, except for Class A trophy towers, as landlords and lenders continued to navigate refinancing challenges.
A year ago, dealmaking was stymied by steep borrowing costs. But landlords who were trying to tread water finally caught a break in September, when the Fed announced its 25-point rate cut.
A surge in mixed-use and residential projects fueled lending for such multifamily lenders as S3 Capital Partners, which almost doubled its lending dollars year-over-year.
“There are brisk sales in the boroughs, rents have been strong in most core areas, [and] everyone’s whispering about the rates,” said S3 Capital’s Shawn Safdie. “I think when you put that all in a blender, developers are optimistic by trade; otherwise, take your ball and go home. And so they’re really playing it, and we’re happy to finance it.”
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