Leadership in a Time of Uncertainty

President of HALL Structured Finance (HSF) Mike Jaynes discusses how HSF has responded to the current pandemic that has impacted the hospitality industry, while delving into how the company has pivoted its business model to focus on the multifamily industry.

A Time of Change
Almost overnight, COVID-19 changed everything; travel ceased, working from home became the new normal, restaurants shuttered and shaking hands became a gesture of the past.

Gearing Up
As the pandemic has continued, banks and other institutional capital providers have increasingly tightened their lending capacities, and there are less options in the lending space for developers. In response, and after pausing our lending activity for a short period we have relaunched our construction loan program, creating a team that specializes in multifamily loan origination that allows us to best serve our borrowers.

Although HSF has always been active in loaning to the multifamily sector, you may know us better for providing 1^st mortgage construction financing to the hospitality industry. While the hospitality sector has been one of the hardest hit industries post COVID-19, we are pleased that HSF’s hotel loan portfolio is performing at a very high level as it consists largely of loans secured by upscale select service and limited service projects, that are branded with strong flags, and located in prime locations. The strong performance of our existing loan portfolio allows us the opportunity to aggressively seek new multifamily construction loan opportunities.

Under our multifamily loan program we will provide up to 70% of development costs, with loan sizes ranging from $20 million to $80 million. While all sectors of real estate have seen some level of negative impact from the pandemic, we see great promise within the multifamily sector and are able to underwrite keeping in mind the delivery of new product will be a year or more away.

The Gale Residences | Fort Lauderdale, FL.