G4 Capital Bets On LA In First Expansion Out Of New York

New York-based G4Capital Partners has branched out of New York City more than 20 years after its founding as it seeks to expand its investor pool and further capitalize on the need for multifamily properties in urban areas.

G4 wants to further assert its presence in the space made by banks that pulled back from commercial real estate lending in recent years and leverage the population demographics of the country’s second-largest city to do it.

“We see a real gap now between where borrowers need capital and where traditional lenders are willing to go,” said Larry Grantham, whom G4 appointed as senior managing director in charge of the Los Angeles-area office.

“It's true in California, the West Coast and much of the country. Banks are still pulling back, and that's created a meaningful opening for private lenders who have capital, the experience and the willingness to pick up the phone and walk through complexity with a borrower,” he told Bisnow. 

G4 has completed more than $5.8B in transactions in every asset class since its launch in 2005, but it has been especially active in the New York residential market, lending $320M in construction financing to build a 280K SF condo project in downtown Manhattan and $320M for a residential tower in Greenpoint in the last year.  

In its effort to attract more investors, G4 is looking not only at institutional LPs, pension funds and endowments but also at ever-growing registered investment advisers and family offices, Grantham said. 

Registered investment advisers, or RIAs, are a type of wealth manager that is also a fiduciary. They manage portfolios for their clients, which can range from individuals to families to high net worth individuals. 

RIAs have seen significant growth in the last couple of years, following back-to-back years of record merger and acquisition activity. In 2025, 322 such M&A deals occurred, breaking a record 272 set just one year earlier according to DeVoe & Co.’s RIA Deal Book, published in January.

Momentum for these deals is expected to continue into 2026, setting up a landscape with higher possible assets under management values, which in turn creates new opportunities for companies like G4.

There are a handful of large investment advisory firms based in Los Angeles, including Evoke Advisors, which merged with Cleveland-based MAI Capital Management in August, creating a platform with $60B AUM.  

G4’s expansion into California runs counter to what some other large CRE firms have chosen in recent months as complaints about the state’s political and tax climate grow. Multifamily owner Camden Property Trust said in January that it would sell all 11 of its California assets and leave the state. Wood Partners did the same in 2024.

But Grantham said that despite the very real structural complications to doing business in the state and city, California and LA still have advantages. 

“There's a reason why, despite our challenges, capital keeps coming here,” he said. 

Values have been reset dramatically in general in the LA area, and at the same time, there has an enormous amount of capital on the sidelines. 

“Over the past few years, many lenders, using the GFC term ‘extend and pretend,’ have done that, and that's depressed transaction volume,” Grantham said. “It just feels like we're approaching kind of the end of that cycle.” 

G4 is not trying to time the market, Grantham said, but it does seem like “we're due for a meaningful pickup in transaction volume.” 

G4 wants to be there when that pickup happens. 

As it does in New York, G4 expects to concentrate on the residential market in LA and California deals. 

For many investors, that’s some of the most challenging real estate to be involved in. Regulations are changing all the time, especially around rental properties. But Grantham said the state’s lack of housing means there will be opportunities for G4. 

“We are grossly undersupplied in housing in California, and I don't care which side of the political aisle you sit on,” Grantham said. “It's a fundamental issue we need to address, and we're happy to play our part and finance those types of asset classes. We think the demand from sponsors to borrow our type of capital and from other capital lenders will remain robust over the next 10-plus years.”

Estimates on the severity of the housing shortage in the state vary widely, but new data from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that the state has the highest percentage of people in the U.S. paying 50% or more of their income toward rent.

Grantham acknowledged that a lack of meaningful rent growth and rising expenses are factors that owners are dealing with right now, not to mention rising construction and insurance costs.

“Despite our headwinds, I am pro-LA, pro-California,” Grantham said. “New York City is the biggest commercial real estate market in the country. California is right behind New York.”