CRE Veterans Launch Tech-Enabled Debt Marketplace

Commercial real estate veterans from Avison Young, Greystone and KeyBank Real Estate Capital have unveiled TrueRate, an online debt placement marketplace.

TrueRate offers bridge lending, agency lending and other institutional debt sources, including life insurance companies. The venture is backed by Olive Tree Ventures, an affiliate of national multifamily property owner Olive Tree Holdings.

Dan Gorczycki, who has brokered over $3 billion in transactions over his two decades in commercial real estate finance and is a former senior member of Avison Young’s debt and equity team, leads the venture. 

To access quotes, a borrower can simply enter their financial and biographical information on the platform, according to Gorczycki.

“Once it’s all submitted, the lenders on the other side would come back with a soft quote based on those financial metrics,” Gorczycki tells GlobeSt.com. “There would be no preferential bias. You could get different quotes and you would be able to see the different loan amounts, different interest rates and different ancillary terms.”

Before the platform gains widespread adoption, Gorczycki says borrowers may need first to make a phone inquiry to get their net operating income confirmed. “For the moment, we want to make sure that if they’re saying that their net operating income is a million dollars, that it really is a million dollars after reserves,” he says. “We may have to guide them so that we’re all on the same page.”

Right now, the platform has seven multifamily lenders and a host of bridge lenders. “The bridge lenders are sort of soft in that they’re all willing to look at every single deal,” Gorczycki says. “We’re just making it a more formal process. At the end of the day, we’ll have a few dozen on here.”

While the platform has multifamily lenders so far, Gorcycki says other product types will be added. Before joining Avison Young, Gorczycki worked at Savills Studley and Granite Partners LLC, predecessor to Savills US, for 15 years, where he served as managing director, partner and head of the Debt Group.

The executive team includes Vice President of Strategy and Production Cooper Ramsey, formerly of Greystone and Vice President of Debt Capital Markets Peter Waanders, formerly of KeyBank Real Estate Capital. Overall, the team has facilitated more than $13 billion in transactions during a collective 55 years in the commercial lending industry. 

“I’ve done a ton of retail, a lot of office, a lot of hotel and we’ve all started up a hospitality group,” Gorczycki says. “It will be those main food groups, but it could also be student housing  and assisted living. And I’ve done a lot of marinas in the past. So, that will be a menu.”