- What Commercial debt broker Oakbank Capital Group has launched Parkwood Mortgage
- Why The subsidiary looks to fill a gap in the market and help Oakbank’s developer clients
- What next Parkwood is led by Luca Valenti
Commercial debt broker Oakbank Capital has launched Parkwood Mortgage, a new subsidiary to fill a gap in the market for an institutional-quality residential mortgage brokerage, Green Street News can reveal.
Parkwood is led by Luca Valenti, the subsidiary’s vice president. Parkwood has already completed its first three transactions and aims to broker $150m in residential loans this year.
“For us, it’s a complementary business outside our existing product offering,” Jonah Brown, managing partner, told Green Street News.
“The role of a broker becomes increasingly more valuable in a tight credit market. Oakbank capitalized on that starting in 2022 and has had success in that [commercial] market as traditional lenders tightened up their purse strings. We’re seeing the exact same thing happen in the residential space. It’s the same business model, but solely focused on residential.”
Parkwood will help Oakbank’s developer clients with their customers’ consumer mortgages, which is helpful for all parties due to the slow state of the pre-sales housing market.
“We have a lot of clients we represent at Oakbank on the development side, and we thought it was a good opportunity to create a business to be able to help our clients with their buyers being able to close on transactions,” managing partner David Bell said.
“So it’s a good crossover for us to have the Parkwood brand, where there’s a developer we have to work with on the commercial side and be able to do deals to help them.”
Some 3.5m residential mortgages are renewing over the next 24 months, and Parkwood sees that as an opportunity.
“We noticed a gap in the market from institutional quality in the residential space and thought we’d be able to better service our clients and fill that gap,” Valenti said.
