NEW YORK CITY-After closing a $700 million syndicated construction loan for Extell Development Co.’s 90-story One57 project, a $110 million mortgage refinancing for the Sofitel Hotel on West 44th Street and a $160 million construction loan for Edward J. Minskoff’s 51 Astor Place all in one week, it’s been a busy time for Mark Edelstein, New York-based chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Global Real Estate Finance Group. He talked with GlobeSt.com about what deals are getting done--and what 2012 holds.

GlobeSt.com: You completed nearly $1 billion in loans last week. Does that signal an upswing in the market?

Edelstein: I’m not sure it does because the market is so uncertain right now, but New York bucks the trend along with DC and a few other cities. If you are looking nationally at lending and finance in the real estate market, it is like a tale of two cities. There’s New York, DC, Chicago, maybe San Francisco and then the rest of America. The first half of the year was much more robust than the second half generally because of the stuff that’s going on in Europe. In terms of the finance market, you have to look at sectors within the market to understand it. If you look at the four major food groups being CMBS, foreign lenders, domestic banks and life companies, you are really going to get a flavor for the market and they are all very different. The deals that we did are largely coming out of the domestic banking sector, which is actually quite active right now. When people ask if financing is back, it depends who in the industry you are talking about. If you ask that question to someone in CMBS, they are pretty much sidelined right now. The foreign lenders are not quite as bad, but they are 85% out of the market because of the turmoil in Europe. European banks who are doing business are being very selective.