Adam Sasouness and Josh Sasouness

Dwight Capital thrived during the market dislocation of the past year with a versatile platform.

The Manhattan-based lender originated $3 billion over the one-year period ending March 15 from construction, bridge and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-backed loans. The Federal Housing Administration ranked Dwight as the top overall HUD lender in the first half of HUD’s Fiscal Year 2023.

“It is the cornerstone of our business,” said Josh Sasouness, who co-founded Dwight alongside his brother Adam with a primary focus on HUD multifamily lending nine years ago before broadening into HUD-focused health care deals in 2016. 

The company is also aided by its private real estate investment trust, Dwight Mortgage Trust (DMT), which works in conjunction with Dwight Capital to evaluate lending opportunities nationwide. DMT makes it easier for the firm to provide borrowers with bridge loans for short-term capital needs, since closing HUD loans can often take six to 10 months.

“The idea was to marry relatively inflexible HUD capital with very flexible balance sheet capital, which allows our clients to be as nimble as possible,” Sasouness said. 

DMT closed its largest transaction to date in May 2022 with a $155 million bridge acquisition loan for Valleytree Partners to purchase six garden-style apartment properties in Michigan. The loan also funds capital improvements, including renovating 50 percent of the units. 

Another highlight deal involved a $66 million HUD refinance closed by Dwight Capital in February 2023 for Woodstock West, a 407-unit apartment community in Georgia. The loan received a Green Mortgage Insurance Premium reduction set at 0.25 percent since the property is in the process of achieving National Green Building Standard bronze certification.

Of the 140 loans Dwight closed from March 15, 2022, through March 15, 2023, roughly 66 percent were in the multifamily sector with 33 percent in health care. Dwight also executed 1 percent of its origination volume in industrial as part of a push it began in 2022 to grow its presence into other asset classes beyond multifamily and health care. It was servicing in excess of $11 billion in commercial real estate loans as of March 31.

The DMT platform has also expanded to include preferred equity and mezzanine loans across all asset classes.

“We are constantly looking to evolve,” Sasouness said. “Generally speaking, we do our best when the market is down.” —A.C.