**Gantry’s Jeff Wilcox Sees Banks Return to CRE Lending**
At the upcoming Connect Apartments 2025 conference, taking place this Thursday in Los Angeles, industry professionals will gain key insights from the panel discussion titled “Multifamily Finance in Focus: Debt, Equity, and the Road Ahead.” Ahead of the event, Connect CRE spoke with Jeff Wilcox, Principal at Gantry and a panelist for this session, to get his perspective on the current multifamily finance landscape.
**Q: Depending on the property type, obtaining capital can be a challenge in the current lending environment. Is multifamily far and away the easiest to source, or are there challenges here as well?**
**Jeff Wilcox:** There is no doubt that multifamily has the most capital allocated to it across all lending sources. The availability of capital makes multifamily financing easier compared to other asset classes, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Lenders are very selective in their underwriting due to trends such as softening rents and continued increases in operating expenses. It’s still very much a lender’s market, where lenders dictate terms rather than borrowers leveraging multiple sources to secure better deals.
**Q: Gantry works with a variety of lending sources. Are you seeing any sources becoming more active this year compared to 2024 or 2023?**
**Wilcox:** 2025 is the year banks are making a comeback. Over the past few years, insurance companies, CMBS, debt funds, and agencies have dominated the capital markets, while banks remained cautious due to portfolio concerns. Now that the market has stabilized and banks have addressed their portfolio challenges, they’re returning to the market and actively lending on high-quality assets with credible sponsorship. While their underwriting remains conservative, their participation is adding much-needed liquidity for acquisitions and refinancing.
**Q: We’ve heard that apartment development is trending downward. Are you seeing that reflected in borrower inquiries for construction loans compared to acquisition or refinancing loans?**
**Wilcox:** Yes, construction activity for new apartments has declined over the past three years. Rising construction costs, decreasing rents, increasing expenses, and higher cap rates have made development challenging. The good news is that expenses are stabilizing and rents are starting to trend upward. If construction costs stabilize, we could see a return to development activity—especially since the broader California housing market is still notably undersupplied.
**Q: You’re active both nationally and in Southern California. Outside of SoCal, are you seeing increased demand for capital in other markets?**
**Wilcox:** The San Francisco Bay Area is currently experiencing strong rent growth, which is driving greater demand for capital. Utah continues to be a solid market despite recent supply expansion. Seattle is bouncing back as well. However, parts of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and the South have seen negative rent growth, and those markets have slowed significantly from their 2022–2023 peaks. We expect those areas to remain soft for a few years until their local economies stabilize and existing inventory reaches optimal performance levels.
