While lending costs remain higher than apartment investors might prefer, the market seems to be overflowing with debt options for multifamily borrowers. 

“There is so much debt capital that has to get placed,” Brian Share, vice chair, capital markets equity, debt and structured finance at Cushman & Wakefield, told Multifamily Dive. “It's hard for us to bring a multifamily deal to market that doesn't get a great reception.”

While that’s welcome news for multifamily borrowers, lenders aren’t lowering their standards to get business, according to Jon Siegel, co-founder and chief investment officer at Bethesda, Maryland-based apartment owner RailField Partners.

“Anecdotally, people are talking about how difficult it is to get things done even with the lenders aggressively pursuing business,” Siegel told Multifamily Dive in emailed comments. “It's pretty easy to get a loan for a strong straightforward deal, but any wrinkles end up making the process more complicated and time-consuming.’

Right now, the focus still seems to be refinancing. For instance, Maximiliane Leachman, vice chair of CBRE’s debt and structured finance group, told Multifamily Dive that 60% of the commercial real estate firm’s debt placements were refinancings compared with 40% for new acquisitions.

As owners continue to refinance their properties, the lending mix has shifted slightly in 2026. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are key players, as are the debt funds. But the real 2026 story is the return of banks and even life insurance companies, according to industry professionals who place debt.

Banks and insurance companies are back in business

When the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates in 2022 and Silicon Valley Bank and others later failed, many retreated from the multifamily lending mix.

“Bank lending was already tough before [Silicon Valley’s failure], but that made a tough situation tougher,” Leachman said.

But now they’re back, with bank lending up 30% year over year for CBRE, according to Leachman. At FDIC-insured institutions, multifamily loans outstanding increased 4.1% year over year in June to $665.3 billion in Q1, per CRED iQ.

“Four years ago, I wasn’t even sending deals to banks,” Leachman said. “It wasn’t even worth it.”

Now, banks “just outright beat the agencies” on some deals, according to Leachman. “With swap rates below Treasuries, banks have been able to win business while offering similar spreads to agencies, lowering the borrower’s all-in rate 30-40 basis points,” she said. 

But banks aren’t just competing with the agencies. “The heavy value-add stuff is still dominated by the debt funds, but banks are coming back in with much more force,” Share said. “We think that's a story that will continue to build momentum.”

Banks are also providing competitive options for construction loans, according to Share. But that's not all. “They certainly want to buy anything that's cash flowing or light value add,” he said.

Life insurance companies have also been active in the market this year. “We’re seeing life companies come back because we're hearing that they are underallocated for the year,” Leachman said. “So now they're swinging hard. We've seen that mostly on industrial deals, but it's trickling into multifamily as well.”

Debt funds step in

For owners who need a lifeline, debt funds continue to provide strong refinancing options. “There's a lot of money in the private credit space and in the debt fund space, and I think those make total sense if you're just trying to buy some time,” PXV Multifamily Founder and CEO Matt Ferrari told Multifamily Dive.

At Cushman, Share said his team is spending a lot of time helping developers who have built “beautiful” new properties in the last couple of years but need more time because their construction loans are maturing and their lenders want to be repaid.

And, sometimes, those borrowers can obtain a better spread than they received on their construction loans, according to Share.

“The debt funds specifically have been a great outlet for us to help these developers get more time, not have to sell into a fluctuating capital markets environment that may not be quite as favorable and not have to write a check to pay down their loan,” Share said. “We've been able to find some great solutions with these bridge lenders on a cash-neutral basis.”

But Leachman says refinancing is becoming more difficult for some borrowers. At one point, these lenders maybe wanted 1% to 3% of the loan balance for an extension. Now, many could be looking for 10%.

“We're all waiting for the shoe to drop at the end of this year as those borrowers come back for the second time to that debt fund for another modification,” Leachman said. “It will be interesting to see how many of those go back.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stay in the mix

Last year, there was talk in the multifamily industry about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aggressively working to hit their lending caps.

Now, they’re fending off the debt funds, resurgent banks and life companies, according to Lechman. “I would say the biggest difference in our volume is that agency production is actually relatively flat,” Leachman said. 

Traditionally, 50% to 60% of CBRE’s debt placements have been made through the agencies. Now, the agency share is probably closer to 40%, Leachman said. 

“We're doing a lot more refis than acquisitions,” Leachman said. “The sales market is not up quite so much, and I think that's actually the biggest driver of the shift between agencies and non-agencies.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still have their fans for the right deals. “I think for just stabilized deals, the agencies are still absolutely a great game in town,” Ferrari said.

Share agrees that the agencies are very competitive for stabilized deals, even if they don’t meet their mission-focused objectives. But he says banks and insurance companies can beat the agencies with more complex deals.

“The agencies have a very formulaic box for how they underwrite, and there is some flexibility to that if you're a top-tier sponsor of theirs and the deal has the right lease-up,” Share said. “So it's hard to generalize. But where we see banks and insurance beating the agencies is when it's not a perfect formulaic underwriting.”

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