Wells Fargo Tops NYC Lender Rankings as the Top 20 Write $36B in Loans

New York's biggest lenders wrote far larger checks this year, though the number of loans barely moved.

November 03, 2026

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Good morning. The city's busiest banks opened their wallets wide over the past year. Bigger deals, not a flood of new borrowers, drove the surge.

🎙️ This Week on No Cap: ACORE’s Warren de Haan on why a $17B lender doesn’t want to take your keys.

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Wells Fargo Tops NYC Lender Rankings as the Top 20 Write B in Loans

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Market Snapshot

Most Active Neighborhood

By Deal Count

Bedford-Stuyvesant — 13 sales

Properties Sold

All Asset Types

162

Transaction Volume

Sales Activity

$532.8M

Top Office Submarket

Avg Starting Rent

Madison/Fifth Avenue

$177.73 / SF

Manhattan Office Rent

Avg Effective

$69.35 / SF

Office Rent Growth

YoY Change

-3.9%

*Office metrics courtesy of CompStak; data from 7/1/26 – 9/30/26. Sales metrics courtesy of Actovia; NYC properties reported sold during the week of 10/16/26 – 10/22/26.

Bigger Checks

Wells Fargo Tops NYC Lenders as the Top 20 Originate $36B

New York's largest lenders wrote $36B in city loans over the past year, up 57%, even as Treasury yields spiked and deal activity cooled in recent months.

By the numbers: According to The Real Deal's 2026 rankings of mortgages recorded from August 2025 to July 2026, Wells Fargo jumped from second to first with about $6.3B, up from $2.7B. JPMorgan Chase slipped to second at $5.6B and Citibank held third near $3.1B.

The big three: Together those banks wrote $15B, up 60% from $9.4B. The single largest financing was a $1.2B construction package led by Wells Fargo for BXP's 343 Madison Avenue, a tower targeted for 2029 that was about half pre-leased in July.

Size over volume: The number of loans from the top 20 grew only 2.4%, so the dollar jump came almost entirely from larger tickets rather than new borrowers.

Challengers climb: S3 Capital ranked eighth with $1.4B, up from $1.1B, and its largest loan, $131.5M, funded Edge Property Group's 276-unit student housing project in Washington Heights. Apollo debuted at $1.2B, and Valley National Bank rose to tenth at $1.18B, up from $750M.

Multifamily leads: Apartments made up about 18.5% of new financings citywide. Developers are still adjusting to the 485x and 467m incentives, and because 485x's wage and affordability rules start at 100 units, 20 of 152 newly registered projects sit at exactly 99.

➥ THE TAKEAWAY

The same banks hold the old debt: Banks originated 82 of the city loans in Circlemark's maturity wall analysis, worth $5.75B of the $8.7B coming due over the next 12 months. With rates higher and deals slowing, the lenders writing new paper also carry the refinancing risk, and the slowdown could last into 2027.

Around New York

➥ Namdar Realty Group bought the Flatiron leasehold at 71 Fifth Avenue for $62M, roughly 41% of the $150M price floated in 2021, as long ground leases weigh on value.

➥ Owning a home in NYC costs about 184% more per month than renting, $6,952 against a $3,785 median rent, keeping more households in the rental market longer.

➥ New York led the nation with 37,691 multifamily permits over the 12 months through September, up 52.7%, signaling a supply wave two to three years out.

➥ Fashion Nova CEO Richard Saghian paid $31M for the last unsold Tribeca penthouse at 111 Murray Street, far below the $50M its developers once targeted.

➥ Colliers hired two Cushman & Wakefield veterans to build out its Manhattan leasing teams, adding John Albal on office tenant work and Joseph Hentze Jr. on industrial across the boroughs.

➥ New York has issued initial permits for 86 office conversions this year, covering more than twice as many apartments as a year ago as aging towers turn residential.

➥ A city-seized Bronx building at 2201 Davidson Avenue still logs more than 700 housing-code violations, a cautionary test as the Council moves to revive Third Party Transfer.

➥ Mayor Mamdani demanded that ICE stop using city property to stage enforcement actions, escalating his fight after an agent shot a man last month.

Follow the Money

MULTIFAMILYLONG ISLAND CITY BLDG Management has leased more than 90% of The Orchard’s 824 apartments in nine months and signed the 70-story tower’s first three retail tenants.

OFFICESOHO Shorenstein bought the fully leased 148 Lafayette Street from Tishman Speyer for $132.5M, about $27M above the $105.5M Tishman paid 17 months ago.

MULTIFAMILYDOWNTOWN BROOKLYN Lonicera Partners landed a $176M refinancing from Affinius Capital on its 293-unit rental, another large debt bet on the neighborhood’s newer towers.

MULTIFAMILYMANHATTAN An unnamed landlord secured a $24.5M Citibank refinancing across four Manhattan rental buildings, more of the bank debt the city’s top lenders kept writing.

COMMERCIALMIDTOWN EAST Aurora Capital Associates sold two four-story buildings at 714 and 720 Lexington Avenue for $16.9M, below the $22M they fetched in 2007.

DEVELOPMENTWILLIAMSBURG A Moshe Silberstein company bought 87 Havemeyer Street and two adjoining lots for $13M, with plans filed for a seven-story, 45-apartment building.

MULTIFAMILYLONG ISLAND CITY Brightshore Capital acquired DŌMI, a new 190-unit mixed-income complex in Dutch Kills, for just over $143M with $98.5M of Affinius acquisition debt.

📈 CHART OF THE WEEK

New York led multifamily permitting with 37,691 units, up 52.7% year over year, while Los Angeles nearly doubled activity, highlighting a shift toward coastal markets as major Texas metros slowed.