Northmarq’s Collin Lester: Trust and Liquidity Still Driving NYC Closings

News| November 6, 2025| Paul Bubny

At the recent Connect New York Apartments Investment & Finance 2025 conference, Northmarq VP Collin Lester moderated a discussion on the current state of commercial real estate finance and how transactions are getting done. Here, he follows up with an in-depth look at what he and Northmarq’s clients have seen in the past few months.

Q: Thank you for moderating our panel on opportunistic capital and getting deals across the finish line. What do you think the main takeaway from the panel was?

A: In talking with the other panelists, I think the common theme was cautious optimism. Investment sales activity is picking up, with third-quarter multifamily sales volume in NYC reaching nearly $4 billion, the highest quarterly mark since 3Q 2022. Panelists also highlighted the ample liquidity in the debt markets, and that has been our experience as well. So far in 2025, we’ve received over 1,561 debt quotes from 362 different capital sources, which is a testament to the variety of capital and liquidity out there.

Q: Speaking of multifamily sales volume, are you seeing more owners opting to sell given all of the NYC specific challenges, or are they leaning toward recapitalizations?

A: There has been an uptick in sales volume to be sure, but the floodgates haven’t opened. We focus on recapitalizations and often find ourselves working with local family offices and middle-market owner/operators. These investors are choosing to continue operating in New York even as some institutional players scale back. Our clients believe in the long-term prospects of NYC, and so do we. We draw on our agency lending programs, life company correspondent relationships, and our wider network of capital providers to help our clients stay in the market and assets they love.

Q: It’s great to hear you are focused on helping middle-market owners reduce their cost of capital. The panel was specifically about opportunistic capital and getting to closing. Do you have any examples of creative capital stacks you’ve been exploring?

A: Creativity is so important these days. Northmarq has a variety of proprietary capital sources we utilize to put and keep more money in our clients’ pockets. On the multifamily side, the best combination of leverage and pricing remains remains agency debt. Northmarq also has an in-house equity, preferred equity, and mezzanine financing platform that allows us to move higher up the leverage stack at a lower cost of capital than any other execution.

Q: So you are seeing ample liquidity in the debt markets and have some creative solutions to push leverage beyond what is typical. What do you think is the most important factor in actually getting to closing?

A: To us, trust drives the execution. Here in NYC, we build trust by knowing our clients’ goals, diving deep into transactions, and being forthcoming with challenges. We’ve spent decades cultivating a culture that values relationships over transactions and encouraging our capital partners to risk deliberately. That legacy of trust and informed risk taking uniquely positions us to deliver aggressive, reliable terms.