Many leading equity players are finding themselves at a crossroads in the new year — while equity terms will likely continue to tighten, lenders will have to continue to look for new ways of doing business. By Michael Ratliff.

The banking industry should not hold its breath for a rollicking good time in 2012, as indicated by Trepp’s 2012 U.S. Banking Sector Outlook.

Developers are finding ready financing for their projects, including $66 million for a D.C. multi-family, $50 million for Las Vegas retail and $70 million for a Michigan apartment complex.

In what Ernst & Young research has found to be the largest European real estate transaction in the current cycle, Kennedy Wilson and its institutional partners have just completed the second phase of a $1.8 billion portfolio acquisition.

October 26, 2011
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Morgan Stanley has found a taker for Saxon Mortgage Services Inc.  Morgan Stanley will sell the residential mortgage loan servicing firm to Ocwen Financial Corp. for $59.3 million–and approximately $1.4 billion for servicing outstanding advance receivables.
Scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2012, the transaction comes five years [...]

Prudential Mortgage Capital has hired Michael McRoberts, the latest in a string of departures from the government-sponsored enterprises, to head its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lending business.

New Boston Fund and Asian Community Development Corp. recently secured city and state funds for the construction of a $130 million, 345-unit mixed-income multi-family property in Boston’s Chinatown.

The four most recent transactions bring GGP’s refinancings to $3.9 billion for the year.

Purchased from a bank in the Midwest, the geographically diverse portfolio is secured by retail, office and industrial assets.

Starwood Property Trust has closed the first four loans of a securitization featuring a principal balance totaling $154.4 million.