How Lender Kennedy Wilson Picks a Real Estate Development to Finance

For the most part, construction lending has dried up across the country, with more and more regional banks pulling back from financing ground-up real estate projects. But Kennedy Wilson, a lender based out of Los Angeles, sees opportunity in that. With more lenders on the sidelines, Kennedy Wilson can take advantage of lending to what it determines are the best borrowers and the best projects. And by being active, it can help take some construction loans off regional banks' balance sheets. The Real Deal's Deconstruct chatted with Thomas Whitesell, Kennedy Wilson's head of debt originations, about how the firm is choosing what to lend on, its optimism for multifamily and the difficulties with office-to-resi conversions.