Walker Webcast: Willy Walker Cuts Through the Market Noise

In the post-pandemic years of 2023 and 2024, many in commercial real estate believed that although the economy wasn’t great and there wasn’t much money to be made, “survive until ’25” was a mantra to live by.  “Unfortunately, we all survived to ’25 and then nothing had happened,” Walker & Dunlop chairman and CEO Willy Walker told the audience in his introductory remarks at the company’s Summer Conference. 

Although the market is beginning to rebound a year later, the rate of progress isn’t aligning with anyone’s projections. “The saying now seems to be, ‘there will be a slice of heaven in ’27,’ ” Walker continued.  

In the current environment, said Walker, it’s important to cut through the noise. “What is it that the data is actually telling us?” He said. “It feels as if every one of us has an Instagram feed that is filled with noise. It’s clickbait, it’s fun to look at, but it doesn’t really tell you anything.” 

Walker aimed to cut through some of that noise, noting that the employment rate has remained steady, belying fears of artificial intelligence taking away jobs. Nonetheless, public opposition to AI and data centers has persisted, with about $131 billion of data center projects turned down by local municipalities in the first quarter of 2026. “While AI is ready to go, the government is going to come in and it’s going to slow it down,” said Walker. 

Another factor is how the U.S. is faring from a competitive standpoint against China when it comes to AI usage. The month-to-month growth the use of token is one metric: China more than doubled from 46 trillion tokens in May to 98 trillion in June, while the U.S. saw a smaller increase: 53 trillion in June versus 37 trillion in May.  

“Look at the growth rate in China versus the U.S. and look at the growing disparity between China and the U.S.,” Walker said. “That’s the counter to the government officials saying, ‘whoa, slow down.'” Although the U.S. needs to make sure that AI isn’t displacing jobs, the public and private sectors also need to “make sure we’re using this technology effectively. The Chinese models are winning right now. And so the big question there is, from a national security standpoint, what are we doing with all our data? And what are the Chinese going to do with all our data if we end up using their models? Those are two things that I think we all need to keep in mind.” 

Another source of market noise is the disconnect between stock market performance and consumer sentiment—which itself is at odds with current levels of consumer spending. “Consumer sentiment has never been this low since they started doing consumer sentiment surveys in 1952,” said Walker. “It is lower than it was during the tech bust, it is lower than it was during the Great Financial Crisis and it is lower than it was during the pandemic. 

“And you sit there and you look at this data and you say, ‘well, how can it be that consumers are so down on the economy given the general health of the underlying numbers as it relates to GDP growth, as it related to employment, as a relates to general opportunity?”  

The currently divisive political landscape may be the cause, or the fact that the U.S. is at war. Regardless, Walker said, “we’ve never had such a delta between consumer sentiment and the stock market. Which is right? Is the stock market right? Is the consumer right?” 

Walker offered his thoughts on where the current pace of recovery will land between the gradual uptick following the S&L crisis of the early 1990s and the GFC nearly two decades later. He cited the Denver apartment market as a model of where delivery rates, absorption and vacancy rates have been nationwide over the past few years. He also discussed the coming wave of maturities in CRE borrowing. 

Most of the audience, he said, was borrowing on a short-term basis: five-year terms rather than 10-year. “Going back to 2020, we did $20 billion of agency originations in that year,” said Walker. “All of it was seven or 10-year money, and the majority was 10-year.” Last year, nearly half the loan volume Walker & Dunlop arranged was five-year.  

“The thing to keep in mind here is that all that 2020 paper is maturing in 2030 and all that 2025 paper is maturing in 2030,” Walker said. “So there will be a pile-up of maturities in 2029, 2030, and 2031 as this year, last year, and the year before of shorter durations pile up on top of the longer durations that were done previously. As we talk to clients, we ask, ‘do you want to be in that refi moment or do you want to get over it or ahead of it?”  

On-demand replays of the July 22 Walker Webcast are available through the Walker Webcast channels on YouTube, Spotify and Apple. Subscribe to get invites, replays and articles for new Walker Webcast episodes every week.