By Joshua Burd
Eastern Union Funding has expanded its health care team with the hiring of a new vice president.
The Howell-based commercial mortgage brokerage firm said last week that it has hired Nachum Soroka, an experienced underwriter with years specializing in health care financing. He joins Eastern Union’s health care group, having underwritten more than $1.5 billion in health care loans nationwide.
Before coming to Eastern Union, Soroka was the chief underwriter for the national health care financing group at Banco Popular North America, where he created the underwriting, screening and portfolio management templates for the bank’s $500 million loan portfolio, according to a news release. He has expertise in skilled nursing, assisted living, CCRC and hospital facilities.
“Nachum’s experience and banking relationships will increase our ability to capture the flood of deals—especially acquisitions—happening in the health care space,” said Philip Krispin, director of Eastern Union’s healthcare group. “This year, to date, our team has a full pipeline of acquisition and refinance loans for facilities across the country.”
Prior to Banco Popular, Soroka was a lead analyst for Maryland-based Congressional Bank, working on bridge loans and lines of credit in the skilled nursing sector, the news release said. Soroka has also analyzed more than $3.5 billion in potential credit, including ground-up construction, acquisition loans and refinancing.
Eastern Union noted that the national sales volume total for health care in 2016 was $9.3 billion, citing research from Colliers International. The sector also posted an all-time record low national vacancy rate at the end of 2016, with annual absorption reaching the highest level since 2008 and rents rising by 8 percent year over year.
