Walker & Dunlop, Inc

Good day and welcome to the first quarter 2026 Walker and Dunlop earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Kelsey Duffy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Walker and Dunlop's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I have with me this morning our chairman and CEO, Willie Walker, and our CFO, Greg Florkowski. This call is being webcast live on our website and a recording will be available later today. Both our earnings press release and website provide details on accessing the archive webcast. This morning, we posted our earnings release and presentation to the investor relations section of our website, www.WalkerDunlop.com. These slides serve as a reference point for some of what Willie and Greg will touch on during the call. Please also note that we will reference the non-GAAP financial metrics, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted core EPS during the course of this call. Please refer to the appendix of the earnings presentation for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial metrics. Investors are urged to carefully read the forward-looking statements language in our earnings release. 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. Forward-looking statements describe our current expectations, and actual results may differ materially. Walker & Dunlop is under no obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, and we expressly disclaim any obligation to do so. More detailed information about risk factors can be found in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Willie.

Thank you, Kelsey, and good morning, everyone. I want to start the call by thanking Kelsey for her incredible 12 years at Walker & Dunlop. She is going to take early retirement to spend more time with her family. and everyone at Walker & Dunlop, and Greg and I particularly, are extremely appreciative of all you have done for Walker & Dunlop over the last 12 years. So thank you, Kelsey. We started 2026 with active commercial real estate capital markets across the industry, and Walker & Dunlop closed $13.7 billion of total transaction volume, up 94% from Q1 2025, as shown on slide three. That strong transaction activity coupled with continued growth in our servicing portfolio, drove total revenues of $301 million, up 27% year-over-year, and diluted earnings per share of 46 cents, up 475% over Q1 of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA grew to $74 million, up 14% year-over-year. Our Q1 2026 financial performance reflects Walker & Dunlop's teamwork, brand, and continued standing as one of the best commercial real estate capital markets firms in the industry. Debt originations totaled $11.8 billion, more than doubling year over year, as activity accelerated across nearly every part of our financing business. Agency lending volume was up 109% to $5.2 billion, led by $3.1 billion with Freddie Mac. Our strong quarter with Freddie included a $1.7 billion refinancing of workforce housing assets for Starwood Capital Group, a deal that demonstrates our team's ability to execute on scaled, complex transactions. $4.7 billion of originations for the GSEs increased our market share from 11.2% at the end of 2025 to 12.3% at the end of Q1, a nice step up. Brokered debt volumes totaled $6.5 billion, up 155% year over year, reflecting our fantastic team and ability to place capital across commercial real estate asset classes with a multitude of capital providers. The debt capital markets are flush with capital and allowing owners who don't like pricing in the sales market to refinance. As slide five shows, on Zellman's quarterly research buy, sell, build sentiment index, only 6% of multifamily owners are currently sellers, with 64% buyers and 30% builders. This phenomenon is tempering investment sales volume. which was solid but only up 4% on the quarter to $1.9 billion. We expect investment sales volumes to increase over the course of the year due to increased capital flows as well as values. One important indicator of our growth and productivity is transaction volume per banker broker. As you can see on slide six, on a trailing 12-month basis through Q1 26, our average production per banker broker was $282 million, up from $248 million at the end of 2025. This increase reflects the pickup in industry activity as well as large portfolio transaction I mentioned previously. As we continue to use technology and focus on increasing our team's productivity, we expect that this metric will continue to improve to hit our goal of $300 million of transaction volume per banker broker by the end of 2026. Loan repurchases and indemnification agreements with the GSEs have required a tremendous amount of time and effort from our servicing and asset management teams over the past two quarters. During the first quarter, our total GSE loan repurchase exposure was lowered from $222 million to $192 million, which is welcome progress. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be performing their annual reviews of Walker & Dunlop. And we are hopeful that those reviews in conjunction with the conclusion of any loan specific investigations will be resolved later this year and allow us to move past these repurchase issues. We have strengthened our underwriting processes, enhanced our teamwork and protocols, and reinforced our culture of accountability to make us an even better lender going forward. I will now turn the call over to Greg to talk through our financial performance and financial outlook in more details. Greg.