Walker & Dunlop, Inc. 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Walker & Dunlop's second quarter 2026 earnings call. This call is being webcast live on our website, a recording will be available later today. Joining me today are Willy Walker, Chairman and CEO, and Greg Florkowski, our CFO. Before we begin, please note that statements made on this call, which are not historical facts, may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are urged to read the forward-looking statements language in our press release, which was posted this morning to the investor relations section of our website. More detailed information about risk factors can be found in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. Additionally, we'd like to remind you that during this call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial metrics.

Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial metrics are included in our most recent earnings release and earnings call presentation, which can be found on our website. With that, I will now turn the call over to Willy.

Thank you, Amy, good morning, everyone. This is Amy's first Walker & Dunlop earnings call since joining us to run investor relations, I'd like to welcome Amy to the Walker & Dunlop team. Thank you everyone for joining us. Walker & Dunlop continues to demonstrate the strength and resilience of our platform despite the uncertain macroeconomic environment in commercial real estate due to geopolitical tensions and associated interest rate volatility. W&D is gaining market share, expanding our capital relationships, generating durable recurring cash flows, and deepening the client relationships that have differentiated our company for decades. Those fundamentals remain as strong today as they ever have been. Importantly, our clients continue to choose Walker & Dunlop because of the exceptional execution of our team, the quality of our people, and the breadth of our capital relationships around the globe.

Our core operating business performed very well during the quarter, as shown on slide three. Transaction volumes increased 3% from a year ago to $14.4 billion. Debt financing volume increased 8% to $12.5 billion, led by 43% growth in HUD originations. Brokered lending grew 17% in the second quarter and comprised a larger percentage of total transaction volume, which reflects progress on our strategic plan to expand our capital relationships in the U.S. and Europe. We expect brokered volumes to continue growing throughout the year due to the volume of maturing non-multifamily loans and the broad supply of capital for commercial real estate lending. Yet year to date, our market share with the GSEs is up 350 basis points to nearly 15%.

This is a tremendous accomplishment by our team and positions us extremely well to end 2026, once again, at the top of the GSEs' league tables. Fannie and Freddie have only deployed $62.5 billion of capital through the first half of the year, or about one-third of their combined lending capacity. With $114 billion remaining for 2026 and our increased market share to 15%, we see a very constructive backdrop for our GSE lending over the balance of the year. Our property sales pipeline has strengthened meaningfully compared to last quarter, and if our clients decide to transact in 2026, we are well positioned to finish the year with property sales volume above last year, despite the slower start to 2026. Increased property sales activity would also support stronger multifamily debt financing volumes in the remainder of the year.

Our servicing portfolio continues to grow and reached a record $146 billion at the end of Q2, up 6% year-over-year, providing durable recurring revenues and cash flows while deepening client relationships that generate future financing and advisory opportunities. 52% of the loans in our portfolio mature over the next five years and will generate refinancing and sales opportunities with our existing clients. To further enhance our client offering and connectivity, we launched WDSuite last year, giving clients a single digital platform to manage their loan with Walker & Dunlop. Through WDSuite, clients can access loan documents, make loan payments, run analytics such as payoff calculations, get real-time property valuation data, research investment opportunities near their property, and connect directly with our financing, appraisal, research, and property sales teams.

WDSuite brings the full breadth of our commercial real estate services platform into one digital experience, reducing friction for our clients while strengthening our relationship with our borrowers. We feel very good about the underlying fundamentals of our business, yet our financial results year to date have been negatively impacted by loan repurchases and credit marks related to a borrower fraud investigation that began a year ago. We are pleased to report that Freddie Mac's loan-level review related to the investigation is complete, and we are very close to being finished with Fannie Mae. Greg will discuss the loan-level charges we have taken this quarter and the projected charges related to the Fannie Mae investigation in a moment. I must say it feels very good to be close to putting all of this behind us.

The investigations have been extremely challenging for our company, for our financial results, and for our team. I cannot express sufficiently my thanks to many members of our team for the countless hours of double and triple work they invested while these investigations were ongoing. Importantly, the investigations indicate that these credit issues were almost exclusively related to a small group of fraudulent sponsors that originated loans with one Walker & Dunlop banking team that is no longer at the company. While all of this has been costly and time-consuming, we have learned a great deal from this process and emerge a stronger company. As Nelson Mandela once said, quote, "I never lose. I either win or I learn," unquote. Our underwriting processes and partnerships with the GSEs are more robust than ever before.

Together, we have strengthened our underwriting, fraud detection, and review processes while reinforcing the culture of accountability that has always been central to W&D. Our focus going forward is to execute on the five-year strategic growth plan called the Journey to '30 that we outlined for investors earlier this year. An important component of that plan is adding the very best talent across geographies and asset classes to expand our origination volumes, deepen our client relationships, and generate exceptional financial returns. Our move into the hospitality investment sales in 2025, along with the opening of an office in London, England, were the first two investments in this broader capital market strategy.

As we expand the scope of our services and our geographic reach, we must continue winning new client relationships. Year to date, 19% of our transaction volume has come from new clients to Walker & Dunlop, and three-quarters of the loans we refinanced were new loans to our portfolio. Winning new clients and new loans has been, and will continue to be, central to our growth and market share gains over the coming years. As transaction and refinancing activity accelerates over the coming years, our strategy is to continue winning new business while deepening the relationships with our existing clients. Our bankers and brokers need to expand those relationships with new products and services to increase Walker & Dunlop's wallet share while retaining the loans that already exist in our portfolio.

As seen on slide nine, on a trailing 12-month basis, our average transaction volume per banker broker reached $288 million, almost to our 2026 goal of $300 million of production per banker broker. Because that production flows through a cross structure and producer base we have already built, increased transaction activity per banker broker should drive greater economies of scale and margin expansion. Because every agency origination becomes part of a servicing portfolio that we retain for the life of the loan, each new transaction adds a recurring revenue stream that generates value well beyond its initial closing. With that, I'll turn the call over to Greg to walk through our financial results and our outlook for the balance of the year. Greg? Thank you, Willy, and good morning.

Our capital markets team navigated a challenging macroeconomic environment this quarter, reinforcing our clients' trust in our team and enabling us to gain market share and deliver solid financial results within our core business. At the same time, our reported diluted EPS reflects $23 million of charges and operating costs related to previously identified problem loans. These charges are meaningful, yet isolated to a small number of fraudulent borrowers and not related to new repurchase exposure or deterioration within our broader portfolio. Adjusted core EPS increased 3% this quarter to $1.19, demonstrating the strength of our core business, while diluted EPS of $0.09 reflects the cost of resolving legacy repurchase issues. Turning now to our capital markets segment. As Willy highlighted, capital markets generated $14.4 billion of transaction volume during the quarter.

Revenue for the segment was down slightly, while net income was down 10%, primarily reflecting a greater mix of broker transactions relative to GSE lending, which reduced non-cash MSR income. We told you in March we expected MSR margins to be broadly consistent between 2025 and 2026, and that remains the case. Importantly, that mix shift demonstrates the availability of capital to the commercial real estate sector and the scale and quality of our debt brokerage business. Turning to our servicing and asset management, or SAM segment. The servicing platform continues to generate stable recurring earnings and cash flow, and the recurring revenues of the managed portfolio continued to grow steadily.