Brandon Baksh.
Brandon Baksh, 28
Managing director at Dwight Capital
Even before he had graduated from college, Brandon Baksh was sporting quite the resume.
The Queens native, who majored in finance at Baruch College and minored in business law and political science, scored internships early on. During his freshman and sophomore years, he worked at JPMorgan Chase’s real estate division. By his senior year, he was interning at Dwight Capital, a full-service nationwide mortgage banking firm specializing in Federal Housing Administration (FHA), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), bridge and mezzanine financing.
“I made a contact at JPMorgan who got me an internship at Dwight Capital,” said Baksh, who works on originating HUD loans throughout the country. “I was their first intern. After I graduated, I went full-time.”
In 2016, Baksh, together with Dwight Capital co-CEO Josh Sasouness, originated the largest multifamily 223(a)(7) loan in HUD’s history: a $128 million mortgage for City Market at O Street in Washington, D.C.
“A lot of what we do is cold-calling and reaching out to people,” he said. “But, over the years, I have built very good relationships with my clients and, often, we are more like friends than colleagues.
“We work 12-hour days, so it’s really nice to be able to have a little fun with what you are doing. That’s the most rewarding part,” he added.
Baksh, who describes himself as “a very competitive person,” said that his current goal is to make Dwight Capital the number one HUD lender in the nation. This year alone, Dwight Capital originated $2.14 billion, which is a HUD record for a fiscal year. Baksh said that he is personally responsible for a $673 million slice of that pie.
“I track what everyone else in the industry is doing so that I know where the bar is for us,” he said. “But someday I hope to dabble on the buy side and build my own real estate portfolio. That’s my goal.”
