Michael Comparato and Brian Buffone

Benefit Street Partners’ commercial real estate team originated nearly $9 billion of real estate investments during 2025.

To understand why BSP had such a strong 2025, it’s worth revisiting the adage that overnight success takes time. As Michael Comparato explains, two decisions helped Benefit Street maintain a clean balance sheet and play offense as the market began to turn: a pre-COVID choice to limit office exposure, and the decision at the height of the multifamily frenzy in late 2021 to avoid `70s and `80s vintage apartment buildings. 

That’s led BSP to be one of the most active lenders over the last few years when others remain battered and bruised under the weight of poor investments. When banks failed in 2023, and the market for industrial credit dried up, BSP swooped in and offered private credit. Comparato estimates 80 to 90 percent of BSP’s industrial loans over the last 10 years were closed in the past 36 months because the banks just stopped lending.

In January, BSP completed a $10 billion raise for its BSP Real Estate Opportunistic Debt Fund II, which was not just six times the size of its predecessor fund but oversubscribed. It’s a massive bet on Benefit Street, but also a catalyst to continue being aggressive when other players have to clean up their portfolios. 

Comparato, who leads BPS’s real estate division with Brian Buffone, wrote a white paper in 2022 exploring the idea of interest rates remaining relatively high. So far, the market has played out exactly as Comparato predicted. Right now, he sees the market currently showing signs of a rebound, passing through the eye of the storm. It’s a nice place to be, but there’s sure to be turbulence — in this case, in the form of illiquid assets — on the other side. 

“If you fast forward a few years and all of this is behind us, there’s going to be a few dead bodies, there’s going to be a few people that lost an arm and or a leg, and some that had a broken finger or two,” he said. “That’s just what happened. You can play with a broken finger. But you can’t if you lose an arm or a leg.”