Walker & Dunlop Hires Five Senior Housing, Care Brokers Away from Marcus & Millichap’s IPA

Commercial real estate finance firm Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD) has added five broker leaders from Marcus & Millichap in a move to bolster its senior housing and care presence in the Chicago area.

Managing directors Mark Myers and Josh Jandris, along with senior vice president Jordyn Berger and VPs Alex Vice and Mike Surak, joined Walker & Dunlop’s multi-family housing team this week, the Bethesda, Md.-based company announced.

All five had worked in the senior housing group at Marcus & Millichap’s Institutional Property Advisors arm, with Myers in particular focusing on the skilled nursing industry. They have together closed more than $5.3 billion in senior housing and care transactions during their careers, according to Walker & Dunlop.

“We have been extremely focused on building out our multi-family property sales platform across the United States, and the addition of this talented team in Chicago both expands our geographic footprint and provides an entry point into the active senior housing sector,” Walker & Dunlop executive vice president Greg Engler said in a statement announcing the hires. “The team’s expertise in this niche segment of the multi-family market, along with its long-term care platform, will complement our established senior housing finance capabilities and provide additional value to our clients.”

The five former IPA brokers will work with Walker & Dunlop’s senior housing finance group, which the company says closed $900 million in debt financing related to senior living properties in 2018.

Walker & Dunlop framed the move as part of larger push to expand its presence in the marketplace, noting that it has added 12 brokers to its roster since the start of last year while generating year-over-year sales increases of 106% in the first quarter of 2019.

“Joining Walker & Dunlop gives our team the opportunity to be a major contributor to the company’s strategic growth over the next several years, particularly as it expands the scale of its property sales footprint,” Myers said in the statement.