Low Interest Rates Helped Lending Markets Stay Active in 2020

Lending activity faltered during the pandemic, but it didn’t come to a grinding halt. Several capital markets leaders have actually reported healthy lending activity, including San Francisco-based Gantry, which had a total of $3 billion in US mortgage placement in 2020. Low interest rates helped to drive that activity, giving borrowers motivation to move forward on deals despite the market uncertainty.

“The low interest rates throughout the year definitely allowed our borrowers to secure impressive terms on loans for those that had a property with strong fundamentals,” Mike Heagerty, principal and chief financial officer at Gantry, tells GlobeSt.com. “These loans and terms are positioning borrowers for long-term stability while often simultaneously bridging pandemic related disruptions. The competition from lenders at the end of the year for the top-tier transactions was significant and this created even more opportunities for borrowers seeking best-option funding.”

Multifamily and industrial accounted for the majority of the volume, while office, retail and hotel product had reduced borrower demand. “We produced loans for every property type in 2020 however looking back at the year, we ended up originating more volume in multifamily and industrial than prior years. Our traditional retail and office lenders continued to lend for these asset classes during 2020, but there was not as much competition for those property types so they were able to underwrite more selectively,” says Heagerty. “Hotel loans are still very difficult to place due to that sector’s less predictable and substantial pandemic-related disruptions.”

In addition, relief requests also took precedent during the year. “In some cases the same staff people were negotiating a boatload of relief requests on their existing portfolio while quoting new deals from a new quarantined home office environment where they could not visit any of the properties,” says Heagerty. “It took a team approach with local correspondents and extraordinary flexibility by all parties involved to end up with so many successfully executed transactions.”

While Gantry had a good year, the same was not true of all lenders. Some took a pause. This could impact lending volumes in 2021 when those lenders become active again. “There were many other lenders who dropped out during the challenges of 2020 and we will be interested to see if they re-enter the market,” says Heagerty. “Also, maturities will be higher this next year so we will start considering those transactions for refinancing and determine if a straight refinance is available or if there will need to be a focus on more complicated restructuring efforts, particularly for retail and office assets.”