Best commercial real estate lending — what AI assistants actually recommend

Best commercial real estate lendingaccording to AI assistants

Wells Fargo is named most often — in 21 of 36 answers. 6 questions a buyer would type, asked of 2 assistants 3 times each.

1 Wells Fargo 2158%

2 Bank of America 2056%

3 Blackstone 1747%

4= Ares 1644%

4= KKR 1644%

6= Goldman Sachs 1542%

6= JPMorgan 1542%

8= Fannie Mae 1439%

8= Prudential 1439%

8= MetLife 1439%

11= Morgan Stanley 1336%

11= Apollo 1336%

11= Starwood Property Trust 1336%

+94 more brands named at least once ranked below the top 13

14= Freddie Mac 1233%

14= Ladder Capital 1233%

16 Brookfield 1131%

17 JPMorgan Chase 1028%

18 Barclays 925%

19= Citi 822%

19= PGIM 822%

19= Berkadia 822%

22= MassMutual 719%

22= Blackstone Mortgage Trust 719%

24= BlackRock 617%

24= CBRE 617%

24= Ready Capital 617%

24= Blackstone Credit 617%

24= PNC 617%

29= Walker & Dunlop 514%

29= Greystone 514%

29= Deutsche Bank 514%

29= Starwood Capital 514%

29= New York Life 514%

34= Arbor Realty Trust 411%

34= Benefit Street Partners 411%

34= Freddie Mac Optigo lenders 411%

34= HUD/FHA 411%

34= J.P. Morgan 411%

34= KKR Real Estate Finance 411%

34= Lazard 411%

34= MF1 Capital 411%

34= PIMCO 411%

34= U.S. Bank 411%

44= Charles Schwab 38%

44= Citibank 38%

44= Fidelity 38%

44= KKR Real Estate Credit 38%

44= Lument 38%

44= MF1 38%

44= NewPoint Real Estate Capital 38%

44= Northwestern Mutual 38%

44= Nuveen 38%

44= Oaktree 38%

44= PGIM Real Estate 38%

44= Pacific Life 38%

44= TCW 38%

44= TPG RE Finance 38%

44= Truist 38%

59= Allianz 26%

59= Ares Commercial Real Estate 26%

59= Blue Owl 26%

59= CBRE Capital Markets 26%

59= Centerview 26%

59= CoreVest 26%

59= Equitable 26%

59= Evercore 26%

59= Fannie Mae DUS lenders 26%

59= HSBC 26%

59= Interactive Brokers 26%

59= Janus Henderson 26%

59= KKR Real Estate Finance Trust 26%

59= Lima One Capital 26%

59= Lincoln Financial 26%

59= M&G Real Estate 26%

59= Manulife 26%

59= Raymond James 26%

59= Schwab 26%

59= TD Ameritrade 26%

59= TIAA 26%

80= A10 Capital 13%

80= AXA 13%

80= Athene 13%

80= BAM Capital 13%

80= Barings 13%

80= Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies 13%

80= BridgeInvest 13%

80= BrightSpire Capital 13%

80= Canyon 13%

80= Cerberus 13%

80= Churchill Real Estate 13%

80= Cushman & Wakefield 13%

80= FHA/HUD 13%

80= Granite Point Mortgage Trust 13%

80= HFF 13%

80= Hines 13%

80= Huntington 13%

80= JLL Real Estate Capital 13%

80= John Hancock 13%

80= Lincoln National 13%

80= Lone Star 13%

80= Mesa West Capital 13%

80= Newmark 13%

80= Peachtree Group 13%

80= TPG Real Estate Finance 13%

80= UBS 13%

80= US Bank 13%

80= Värde 13%

7 brands in this market were named in none of the 36 answers: ACORE Capital, Barings Real Estate, Basis Investment Group, Prime Finance, Prime Finance LLC, Torchlight Investors, primefinance.com.

Want to get weekly ranking updates?

Leave your email. No account, no card — we'll let you know when this feature is ready, and send the occasional note as the site grows.

The questions

Which lenders are most reliable for multifamily property financing?
Who are the best commercial real estate lenders right now?
Which real estate debt investors have the most capital available?
Which lenders specialize in transitional or value-add real estate deals?
What companies provide CMBS investment opportunities for investors?
Who has the best reputation for creative financing structures?

These belong to the market, not to any brand in it. Each was asked 6 times across two assistants. Questions naming a brand are excluded, since they hand that brand a free mention.

Method

market commercial real estate lending
brands measured 114
run as subjects 0
questions 6
answers per brand 36
brand list version 7c2198b65e86

Questions went to the OpenAI and Anthropic APIs with web search off, each in a fresh context with no history. That measures what the models already know about these brands rather than what they would find on the web today, so it is a floor on visibility rather than a replica of any one person's chat.

Repeated measurements of the same brand move within about 12 points, so a difference smaller than that is not meaningful. Brands closer together than that are shown tied rather than ordered.

How the table is ordered. By how many of the 36 answers named each brand. Brands on the same count share a rank and are shown in the order the assistants tended to list them. A brand counts once per answer, however many times it is named in it.

How close is close. Two brands share a rank only when their counts are identical. Beyond that, a gap smaller than about four answers is inside what this measurement moves between runs — so read near-neighbours as close rather than settled, which is why every row keeps its interval.

All markets