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Massachusetts’ fastest-growing banks and credit unions this year have fueled their growth with commercial real estate lending, despite headwinds and uncertainty.

The Fast 50, compiled annually from data collected by The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, reveals the 50 fastest-growing lenders in Massachusetts for the first six months of 2026, compared to the same period a year ago.

Bank commercial real estate loan volume increased by 44 percent statewide year-over-year in the first six months of 2026, according to Warren Group data. Bank commercial real estate loan originations were up 46 percent on the same basis, according to research by commercial brokerage Newmark.

Regional banks completed the largest share of commercial real estate loans in the first two quarters of 2026, said Joe Biasi, Newmark’s national head of commercial capital markets research.

“Private lenders and other types of lenders have come in and taken some market share, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the banks have pulled back,” he said. “In fact, they continue to be a very important provider of liquidity in the market, and they’re a growing part of the market as well.”

Payoff from Relationship-Building

Walking down Essex Street in the heart of downtown Lawrence brings pride to Reading Cooperative Bank’s Chief Banking Officer Phil Bryan.

The bank grew its commercial real estate volume by 338.6 percent statewide through the first six months of 2026, according to Warren Group data, in part by financing new housing in Lawrence. RCB originated 10 loans for projects in the city worth $20.27 million during the first and second quarters of 2026.

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In an interview, Bryan credited the bank’s commercial real estate lending growth to making sure that employees are entrenched in the Lawrence market and building relationships.

“They have those relationships within the community and within the business world. Multiple people here at Reading are on multiple boards in Lawrence, which has endeared us to the community to some degree, and we don’t take that for granted,” he said. “It’s a much shorter timeline to turn around a success than trying to get into a community where you’re unknown. The bank invested quite a bit of time in Lawrence long before the real tangible results started to happen.”

CUs Looked to Boost Returns

St. Mary’s Credit Union also saw significant growth in loan volume. The credit union saw its loan origination volume increase by 314.6. percent through the first half of the year according to The Warren Group.

Credit unions typically focus on consumer lending, but in order to continue to grow overall originations, more credit unions have been getting involved in commercial lending, SMCU Chief Lending Officer John Hendrikse said.

“We – and I know other credit unions and small banks have as well – have really put a focus on driving the commercial space to make it a larger percentage of our total origination activity,” he said. “It’s generally a little bit more profitable. It comes with a full relationship, deposits and loans. It’s gradually, over time, getting a lot of boards of smaller institutions that equate larger dollars to larger [risk] exposure of overcome that. It’s changing hearts and minds a little bit.”

This was particularly the case for St. Mary’s. The credit union brought in Bryan Moore to be the new vice president of commercial lending two years ago. Since then, Moore helped tweak some policies that allowed the credit union to get more involved in the market, Hendrikse said.

Hendrikse highlighted a $5.6 million construction loan for Epic Polymer Solutions in Grafton for the construction of a permanent owner-occupied building, which at the time was the largest loan it had ever written. The credit union also loaned money to multifamily projects in Shrewsbury earlier in the year.

While multifamily projects are often to be a focus area for community institutions, Clinton Savings Bank has a particular focus to diversify portfolios to aid origination growth, said Chief Lending Officer Robert Rivard. He credited business lending for adding new clients and reducing risk.

Commercial real estate loan volume increased by 44 percent statewide year-over-year in the first six months of 2026, according to Warren Group data. iStock illustration

Rent Control Uncertainty a Factor

Experts and executives interviewed for this story said that the multifamily sector continues to be a strong investment choice for local institutions despite notable softness in the rental market this year, due to the long-running shortage of housing in the state.

Gov. Maura Healey has called for 220,000 homes to be built from 2025 to 2035 in order to address the shortage. The administration argues that housing costs will stop rising as fast as more homes join the market and shrink the state’s housing deficit.

But banks faced a tough choice about whether to even finance apartment deals at all this winter and spring. Rent control supporters secured enough signatures to place an especially strict version of the concept on this fall’s statewide ballot.

“Certainly, it was something we were paying attention to because that can change values of some of this real estate,” Reading Cooperative Bank’s Bryan said. “It’s going to change projections on rent increases and some of the projects we are working on assumed a certain growth or based upon historic numbers, and then that could have been limited. So, there was definitely a lot of discussion around it and how we might position ourselves going forward.”

But the potential for rent control to pass didn’t hang over the market for long enough to affect projects RCB financed, Bryan said.

Biasi, the Newmark analyst, noted that the brokerage saw “some slowdowns” in the Boston market as developers and buyers waited to see if rent control would pass. The state Supreme Judicial Court threw the question off the November ballot on a technicality Aug. 1.

Now that rent control is no longer on the ballot, Biasi said it is “game on” for commercial real estate lending and acquisitions in Massachusetts.

Sam Lattof

Construction Costs Spiked

Lenders didn’t just need to weigh political concerns, either. A notable uptick in construction costs hit early in the year and accelerated over the spring.

The portion of the Producer Price Index that covers goods used in building multifamily housing, produced by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, rose 3.38 percent year-over-year in February and 7.2 percent year-on-year in May before calming to 6.3 percent year-on-year growth in June. Analysis by the National Association of Homebuilders attributed the increase to builders’ spiking energy costs.

The jump comes after materials costs averaged 2 percent or less year-on-year growth in 2023, 2024 and 2025, BLS data shows.

Rising costs forced some lenders to be cautious, but Clinton Savings Bank saw an opportunity to remain active, the bank’s Rivard said.

“For us as a mutual community bank, that environment reinforces the importance of knowing our customers and markets,” Rivard said. “While some borrowers may be more cautious, we’re able to identify opportunities where businesses still need financing to grow, expand, or invest. Our local relationships and understanding of the communities we serve allow us to remain active and responsive even when the broader economic environment is more challenging.”

While the economy continues to deal with uncertainty, this is not a foreign environment for lenders.

“Frankly, we’ve had economic uncertainty to some level for six years at this point,” Newmark’s Biasi said. “We do need to keep an eye out on changing interest rates, changing base rates, but in terms of economic uncertainty, that’s really the place I’m the most focused. We went very quickly from a pandemic, to increasing inflation, to tariffs, to the war in Iran. At some point you’ve got to put out capital, and you have to make good investments.”