Walker & Dunlop Funds $380M for Student Housing Credit Facility

Walker & Dunlop, Inc. has funded a new $380,000,000 credit facility for the refinance of 11 student housing properties on behalf of a joint venture lead by The Scion Group LLC ("Scion"). Scion is the largest owner/operator of off-campus student housing communities globally with over 80,000 beds in their portfolio. This latest financing marks a significant milestone as Walker & Dunlop has now originated over $3 billion in debt for The Scion Group.

The Walker & Dunlop team, led by Colin Coleman, Brendan Coleman, and Will Baker, structured a Fannie Mae Credit Facility, the fourth iteration of this joint venture. The new facility allowed the borrower to eliminate all floating rate exposure in their original credit facility while refinancing several maturing one-off loans. Demonstrating the Walker & Dunlop teams' prowess and deep expertise, the transaction processing was expedited, effectively rate locked and closed in just 35 days.

"Walker & Dunlop was instrumental in originating financing for this venture's four large portfolio acquisitions spanning back to 2016," said Clayton Merritt, senior vice president of Capital and Investments at The Scion Group. "Over the past nine years, Walker & Dunlop has continued to add value to our portfolio through proactive and strategic capital stack management. This complex transaction, which spanned two credit facilities and over $2.3 billion of Gross Asset Value (GAV), achieved multiple strategic goals for the partnership – and is yet another example of Walker & Dunlop's differentiated expertise."

"As our partnership with Scion enters its tenth year, it was mission critical for W&D to set up Scion and their partners for the next decade," said Colin Coleman, managing director of Multifamily Finance at Walker & Dunlop. "Their new state-of-the-art Fannie Mae Credit Facility is simply the best portfolio financing vehicle available in the market today. It will provide maximum flexibility and stability as the venture navigates the current markets and charts their exciting next steps."

Walker & Dunlop is a leader in student housing financing and sales. In 2023, W&D was the #1 Lender in the Fannie Mae DUS network while also originating more student housing loans than any of its peers. The firm is one of the top providers of capital to the U.S. multifamily market; through September 30, 2023, the firm originated nearly $18 billion in debt financing volume, including lending over $14 billion for multifamily properties. To learn more about our capabilities and financing options, visit our website.

About Walker & Dunlop

Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD) is one of the largest commercial real estate finance and advisory services firms in the United States. Our ideas and capital create communities where people live, work, shop, and play. The diversity of our people, breadth of our brand and technological capabilities make us one of the most insightful and client-focused firms in the commercial real estate industry.