Three new construction loans landed this week for multifamily projects from Brooklyn to Chicago to East Hanover, and together they say something about where lenders think the money is safest right now: rental housing, not offices, and not necessarily New York.
New Empire picked up $75 million in construction financing for a Brooklyn multifamily project, according to REBusinessOnline. In East Hanover, New Jersey, CBRE arranged a $20 million construction loan from Provident Bank for a 100,000-square-foot development, per ROI-NJ. And Affinius Capital originated a $130 million construction loan for a Chicago multifamily project, Connect CRE reports — bigger than either New York-area deal, and a reminder that the capital chasing apartment construction right now isn't parked exclusively in this market.
None of these are conversions — they're ground-up or new-build multifamily, which matters because it's a different risk bet than the office-to-residential loans that have dominated headlines here for weeks. A lender writing a construction loan on a from-scratch apartment building is underwriting construction risk and lease-up risk. A lender on a conversion is underwriting all of that plus whatever surprises are behind the walls of a 1980s office tower. Both are getting financed. That's the signal: capital hasn't gotten pickier about asset type, just about where it's willing to take the underwriting risk.
For New York contractors, the East Hanover deal is the one to watch even though it's the smallest: a 100,000-square-foot project financed through a regional bank (Provident) rather than a debt fund or life insurer suggests smaller commercial banks are back in the construction lending business in this region, not just the larger balance-sheet lenders who've carried conversion deals through 2026. If regional banks are underwriting again, that's more construction loans in the pipeline generally — including projects too small to make headlines but large enough to need a GC.
None of the three deals name a general contractor. Worth checking each project's DOB or municipal filings once a permit lands — a construction loan closing is usually the last step before mobilization, not the first.