Michelle Herrick and Brian Baker

There are heavy hitters, and then there are heavy hitters. 

Last year, J.P. Morgan originated a hefty $87 billion in loans. Further, in a market that ebbed and flowed, the firm remained a constant, stalwart lending force, providing liquidity to borrowers and communities from coast to coast, while also not shying away from complex financings or large-ticket deals. 

Competition and volatility largely defined the past year, but J.P. Morgan didn’t waiver, leaning into its client relationships and partnerships, and acting as a strategic adviser while delivering certainty, speed of execution, creativity and the full strength of its balance sheet to borrowers big and small. 

As such, “momentum” is the word Michelle Herrick would use to describe this past year, both for the industry and J.P. Morgan’s platform supporting it. “It was nice to see the transaction volume and the capital flows going in a more normalized way,” she said. “We’re always investing in our people, our product expansion, and our technology for a low-friction process for our clients, and 2025 was the first year where we really got to see how those three things function together. I was thrilled to get the positive feedback that we did from the market, and so I’d say both our industry and our platform have a lot of momentum.” 

Notable deals last year included a $3.98 billion acquisition financing for Blackstone Infrastructure Partners’ purchase of Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina and superyacht services platform in the U.S.; $425 million for Related Companies’ first luxury residential development in Jersey City, Harborside Plaza; the preservation and rehabilitation of Bay View PACT in Brooklyn, a 1,600-unit affordable housing development, through a $196.5 million agency loan, a $198 million historic tax credit investment, $23.7 million historic tax credit bridge loan and $7.5 million letter of credit; a $191.2 million financing package for Bradley Ridge Apartments in Colorado Springs, the largest affordable housing deal in Colorado history; and a $102 million construction loan for Casa Adelante, the largest affordable housing project in San Francisco’s Mission District.   

On the CMBS side, J.P. Morgan’s activities include a $2.85 billion SASB securitization for Blackstone’s Aria Resort and Casino and Vdara Hotel and Spa on the Vegas strip in the BX 2025-ARIA deal, part of a $3.45 billion whole loan; and a $2.85 billion financing for Tishman Speyer’s the Spiral in New York in the HY 2025-SPRL deal. 

Oh, and did we mention the bank led a $38 billion construction financing package among a consortium of seven banks for Vantage Data Centers’ development of two large hyperscale campuses totaling 2,250 megawatts? All in a day’s work for J.P. Morgan. 

“While there was some carryover of 2024 market issues into the beginning of 2025, as the year went on deal activity became more active and the competition became more aggressive, but we ended the year well in terms of all of the metrics: revenue, originations, client growth, all those things,” Brian Baker said. 

The recent volatility from the Iran war has caused many lenders to proceed with caution, and the market has moved from a high-
volume, benign, tight-spread environment to a low-volume one with spreads moving considerably wider. Not J.P. Morgan, though.  

“We never root for volatility, but we try to always be prepared for it,” Baker said. “It has tended to benefit our market share and our client impact, because while other firms get a little careful — they go to the sidelines or pull back — it’s culturally embedded in us to be there for our clients. Amid the volatility, we closed two significant deals [including the $4.3 billion financing package for One Beverly Hills]. I think things will settle back to a benign environment. There’s a lot of capital, interested investors, a lot of clients who want to deploy money in the real estate space, and we’ll be there.” 

“In periods of volatility, we have a clear playbook to support our clients,” Herrick said. “Our clients expect consistency of capital and client experience. That’s what we deliver in any environment, and we contributed a significant amount of debt capital to support this industry in 2025 with no plans to change any of that commitment. We’re also scanning for unusual opportunities that create additional value, long term, for our platform.” 

J.P. Morgan’s Community Development Banking team supports efforts to increase the nation’s affordable housing supply, and last year it deployed a considerable $10 billion
in debt and equity to create and preserve more than 60,000 affordable units. It was also awarded the Freddie Mac affordable license last year, which “aligns very well with a mission that is critical to our firm,” Herrick said. “If you think about Freddie and Fannie and the stability and liquidity they’re providing to help housing be more affordable for the country, that is an area where we are incredibly well aligned as the largest multifamily lender and also the largest bank. It’s an area where we spent a lot of time, proudly, in `25, and we’ll only work hard to figure out how to do more as we go forward in 2026.” 

As two final reasons to celebrate, J.P. Morgan opened its new global HQ at 270 Park Avenue last year, and also shared plans for a 3 million-square-foot landmark tower in London, which is pegged to contribute $13 billion over six years to the local economy, and create 7,800 jobs across construction and other industries.