Newmark Group Inc. announced the appointment of Sharon Karaffa as president, Multifamily Debt & Structured Finance. Karaffa will serve next to Chief Strategy Officer and President Multifamily Capital Markets Jeff Day through year-end, concurrent with Day’s planned retirement effective December 31, 2023. Karaffa will lead Multifamily Capital Markets in partnership with Chad Lavender, president of North America Capital Markets, who will serve as interim Head of Multifamily Investment Sales.
In her new role, Karaffa will oversee all aspects of multifamily debt and structured finance, focusing on revenue growth, business development and client and lender relationships while also leading Newmark’s Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA lending platforms. Additionally, Karaffa is responsible for developing synergies, cross-collaboration and cross-selling among Newmark’s Multifamily Capital Markets’ Investment Sales and Debt & Structured Finance teams.
She has over 20 years of experience, the majority of which has been in multifamily finance. Under her leadership, over the past three years, Newmark’s Multifamily Capital Markets platform experienced a 28 percentage point increase in the multifamily investment sales volume financed through its debt platform and a nearly 60% increase in multifamily debt production volume overall. Before joining the Company in 2017, Karaffa was the director of priority borrower relationships and bead of structured transactions for Fannie Mae Multifamily, where, during her governance, credit facilities experienced triple-digit growth. Earlier in her career at Fannie Mae, Karaffa managed the acquisition of seasoned loan portfolios and various lender relationships and led the Financial Planning & Analysis division.
