There’s a simple secret to how CIT Real Estate Finance consistently wins the right to lend to the likes of Barry Sternlicht, Gary Barnett, the Zeckendorfs, Dune Real Estate Partners, and Steve Witkoff.

CIT has 58 loans in the works with almost $2B in commitments and has provided debt for such powerhouse condos as the Baccarat Residences, One57, 50 UN Plaza, 56 Leonard, and 150 Charles, says president Matt Galligan, whom we snapped over lunch at Vitae recently. How does he win so often in the most heated multifamily market in the world? He offers the ever-so-rare non-recourse debt. He ensures his company’s well-being, then, by always taking the senior secured position and favoring low-leverage deals. (We were so intrigued we tried to pay for lunch with non-recourse debt. The waitress was not amused.) Matt’s comfortable enough with demand that in this market, he says, having the property as collateral means he’ll at the very worst break even.

But he chooses deals carefully, considering soaring land prices and seeking first and foremost the best transit access. (It's the same way we pick doughnuts: Good price and won't leave us unable to move the next day.) Williamsburg land is trading at $350/SF (where Manhattan land was in ’07), Matt says, while Queens is trading at $200/SF and Jersey City (above) for $100/SF. The latter is where he’d most prefer to lend. He’s leery, on the other hand, of deals like the recent $700/buildable SF sale of a Hertz garage on the Upper West Side. Units will have to sell at $2,500/SF for that deal to work, he says.

Matt’s always been part of a real estate family: His dad was a real estate lawyer, his mother a broker. His wife, Susan, is a Corcoran broker, and his son Teddy works for Massey Knakal. But Lincoln Logs were the extent of Matt's interest in bricks, mortar, glass, and steel. He's excited by deal structuring, and it remains to be seen which way his son Phil will go, as he’s following up internships at Massey Knakal and Colliers with one this summer at M&T Bank before returning to Fordham for his senior year. Matt majored in accounting and worked his way up the finance industry. Five years ago, he opened Bank of Ireland’s US ops, and when the bank's books soured, he founded CIT’s real estate arm in 2011 with six former colleagues. Eventually, his company bought Bank of Ireland, more for the talent than the books, he says. CIT Real Estate lends nationally and across property types, but in NYC, where it does 30% of its loans, multifamily rules.