Eastern Union Funding (Eastern), one of the most active commercial real estate mortgage brokerage firms in the nation, announced that Yoel Garber has joined the firm. Mr. Garber heads Eastern’s new Structured and Bridge Division, which formally expands the company’s Quotes and Term Sheets (QTS) group into a broader range of loan products, including structured, hard money and bridge lending activities, and will also originate deals within these categories.

The new Structured and Bridge Lending Division is Eastern’s response to additional demand in the structured and bridge lending space, with the company seeing both a 25% increase in this area over the last year, and further need as brought on by the success of the firm’s Broker Affiliate Division.

“Our Broker Affiliate Division collaborates with investment sales brokerages to enhance their ability to source financing for deals and obtain immediate access to real time financing market information through their Quotes and Term Sheets (QTS) department,” said Ira Zlotowitz, President of Eastern. “The response to this offering has been great so far, and it has quickly become clear that we need a structured and bridge specialist within QTS to service the demand on singing up over 1,000 brokers. Additionally, within the company we have seen a large increase in demand for deals of this nature, closing $440 million in 2016 and currently on pace to close $550 million this year. With the start of our Structured and Bridge Lending Division we aim to double our production, with a goal of $1 billion for 2018. We believe Yoel is the right person to head this initiative, considering his wealth of knowledge and previous experience.”

Mr. Garber has 15 years of experience within structured and bridge lending,including his tenure as a senior underwriter at multiple financial institutions. Previously, he founded and operated his own energy finance and construction business, diversifying his business background. Mr. Garber holds a B.S. in Finance from Touro College. He resides in Lakewood, NJ.

“Yoel is an amazing addition to the Eastern Union Family. Currently, the company is closing almost half a billion dollars a year in bridge deals. I am certain that with Yoel’s focus in this area, we can double that in short order,” said. Eastern’s Managing Partner Abraham Bergman. “On a personal note, soon after he joined Eastern, I gave him a deal I had been working on for a client and was giving up on due to the lack of interest from banks, and he got me three offers within days.”

ABOUT EASTERN UNION FUNDING:

Eastern Union Funding (Eastern) is among the most active commercial real estate mortgage brokerage firms in the U.S., closing an average of $3.5 billion in transaction volume annually. Serving as trusted advisors to real estate owners and working with over 100 capital sources, Eastern and its affiliates deliver a full range of financing products covering the entire capital stack: including traditional mortgages, bridge and structured lending, and equity capital, for all major property types including multifamily, office, retail, mixed-use, healthcare and industrial. To meet increasing demand and offer the best service in the industry, Eastern routes all deals through its unique Quotes and Term Sheets (QTS) Division. The QTS division provides clients with access to the best terms available in the market by processing each transaction and matching it with the right potential capital sources based on data about specific deal parameters. Eastern also operates a new Broker Affiliate Division, which leverages the firm’s existing QTS underwriting infrastructure to provide investment sales brokers with cost-free and conflict-free financing leads, advice, and information. Eastern, a leader in applying technology solutions for real estate finance, runs a proprietary app now used by thousands of real estate professionals (and Eastern’s own staff) to track deals in real time from origination through closing, follow up at the right times to eliminate inefficiencies, and access up-to-date market information