Douglas Bowman, Founder & Principal, Archer Advisory

Invest: spoke with Douglas Bowman, founder and principal of commercial real estate financial services firm Archer Advisory, about the evolution of capital markets, emerging real estate opportunities, and how alternative financing is reshaping the industry. “The capital is there, and the opportunity is significant, but it requires connecting the right borrowers with the right sources,” Bowman said.

What led you to step away from banking and launch Archer Advisory, and how does your lending background shape how you advise clients today?

I have spent nearly 30 years building my career in Charlotte. I entered commercial banking in 2005 and ultimately reached the Charlotte Market President role, which had been my goal from the start. However, once I got there, I realized I had moved too far away from client interaction and advocacy. I found myself spending more time on internal operations and less time with entrepreneurs and real estate professionals.

I also saw a clear problem with how brokered deals were being presented to me and my team. Transaction memos were either overly complex or woefully incomplete, and many were not credit-officer ready. Further, I knew that we were one of dozens of banks being shown these deals, so we tended to put little effort into them. I thought this was an unfair disservice to the clients who were putting their time and capital at risk (and paying for the service). That model can work, but it often creates winner’s remorse for the lender (they wonder what they missed when they win), and it puts the borrower in a spot where the lender keeps them under the magnifying glass from day one. 

That experience led me from representing a single bank to helping clients navigate the broader capital markets. Our extensive lending background allows us to structure presentations the way credit officers and investment committees want to see them. In addition, we are deliberate with the lenders we bring to the table. There’s plenty of capital out there, so access to capital is often not the main objective. It’s all about partnering with lenders who know how to execute, and structuring facilities that keep a borrower’s balance sheet ready for the next deal. 

How would you describe Archer Advisory’s role in the market today, particularly with smaller developers and brokers?

We focus on small to midsized players, such as local developers, brokers, and family offices. These groups often lack internal capital markets expertise. They don’t have dedicated teams to structure and market their deals effectively. Many don’t even realize there’s plenty of funding out there beyond the local banks — even for their $5mm-to-$20mm debt needs. Banks have become pretty stingy in recent years, and the deposit requirements really impact cash-on-cash returns. Many borrowers just feel like they have to accept that, even if it doesn’t make business sense. It’s a dynamic market, with appetites and policies changing weekly.

Our role is to help the little guy level up. That means helping them look more attractive to sellers who don’t have time to mess around with questionable capital, helping them access the right capital sources for their short- and long-term goals, and improving both speed and execution once a lender is selected. We help them with the pitch, finding the right funding, and we’ll herd cats until the deal is closed — then we move on to the next project.

Where are you seeing the most opportunity, and how are investors adapting?

We are seeing opportunity in asset classes that have been underserved or temporarily overlooked. Senior living is a clear example, as it remains significantly underbuilt. Certain segments of office, hospitality, and retail are also starting to re-emerge selectively.

Smaller investors are adapting by being more flexible and willing to move into areas that larger enterprises are avoiding. The smaller players are not constrained by rigid investment playbooks and can take calculated risks. There’s no shortage of people like that in the Southeast, but the traditional lenders are stuck in the playbook. Even so, lenders like it when we’re involved in deals around the Carolinas because we can often provide perspectives that other intermediaries can’t.

A key shift is focusing on second- and third-tier markets around Charlotte. While much attention is on AI plays and data centers, the supporting infrastructure around those trends is where strong opportunities exist. Small-bay industrial is a great example. Workforce housing continues to be a major area of need all over the South — and that’s an asset class that has a lot of support from local, regional, and state-level legislators. Deals with the strongest advocacy get the best financial terms and incentives. It’s always been that way, but even more so now as things are starting to thaw a bit.

In Charlotte, where are you seeing the most opportunity geographically?

The core areas like Uptown and South End are already well developed. That has been one of the greatest growth stories in the U.S. over the past 40 years, and I am fortunate to have had a front-row seat for the back half of it. The next wave of opportunity is in surrounding markets that are just outside of Charlotte along the arteries that lead to the next secondary population area.

Cities and towns like Salisbury, Albemarle, Gastonia, and Statesville are positioned for that kind of growth, particularly where infrastructure and local leadership are the strongest. Points south still have plenty of opportunity, but things drop off pretty quickly after Rock Hill. Some counties in our MSA are better prepared than others. Development is naturally moving outward, and those secondary markets will play a key role in the next phase of expansion.

How is AI reshaping real estate demand and development patterns, particularly for office?

AI is changing how businesses operate by allowing smaller teams to do more with fewer resources. That has a direct impact on space requirements.

Office demand is not disappearing, but it is evolving. Companies are shifting toward smaller, more flexible environments rather than large, traditional footprints.

Lenders are responding differently. Larger lending institutions often avoid office entirely, especially the granular local multi-tenant type of assets, while local and more specialized lenders take a more nuanced view and see that it doesn’t take a team of ten people in an office to do the work of ten people anymore — thanks to AI and flexible work arrangements. Those willing to look deeper are finding viable opportunities in segments of the office market. This is the playbook versus unconventional approaches I spoke of earlier. The little guys will flip the script until it becomes the new script. That’s how the cycle works.

What are you seeing in terms of capital availability for real estate today?

At a high level, capital is abundant, but it’s restricted at the project level. The global commercial debt market is massive, and banks represent only a portion of it.

The real issue is how that debt is allocated across the entire spectrum of lenders. For example, there’s an extraordinary amount of debt coming due in 2026 that was a fit for banks at origination but probably should be funded elsewhere in today’s market. That’s going to take some time to sort out. Many of our borrower clients have been conditioned to rely solely on banks, so they are not aware of the broader range of capital sources available to them. Understanding how to navigate those options is where the opportunity lies. For example, when I was a banker, conventional wisdom was that non-recourse long-term debt was reserved only for large borrowers with big-ticket, investment-grade assets to finance. That’s no longer the case.

How has the capital landscape shifted beyond traditional banks?

We are seeing significant activity in alternative capital sources, including life insurance companies, CMBS lenders, and private credit. These groups are increasingly moving into smaller deal sizes, are getting back into various asset types more quickly, and are focused on high-growth regions like the Southeast.

Additionally, large banks are concentrating on bigger transactions, and the smaller banks tack on a lot of strings for the local knowledge they bring to the table (like deposit requirements, swaps, full recourse, etc.), which creates a gap. That gap is where many of these alternative lenders are stepping in. We’re pretty good at connecting the two. Often there’s a bit of a learning curve for both sides, but that’s how healthy relationships are formed.

What are the biggest factors shaping capital availability today?

One of the biggest shifts has been the change in bank liquidity. Banks have gone from being flush with deposits a few years ago to offering consumers aggressive rates to pull in their deposits. This has driven higher costs of capital for banks and has tightened lending standards.

As a result, deposit requirements have become a standard part of lending terms. These requirements are now embedded in most term sheets. Any real estate professional knows that locking up idle cash in non-interest-bearing accounts carries the same cost as equity capital. Cash is fungible. If you can’t use your idle cash for the next project, you have to go out and get more of it from outside parties — especially when debt leverage levels are as low as they are today. Minimum deposit requirements are strictly a bank thing, and it’s creating solid lending opportunities for lenders that aren’t deposit-gathering institutions. 

Given these constraints, where are deals actually getting done today?

Acquisition and investment deals of all sizes are increasingly being completed through alternative lenders that offer more flexible structures and fewer constraints. That includes credit unions and syndicates of credit unions. Banks are still the go-to for ground-up construction or projects that will take a few years to stabilize. That’s another reason why the small-to-medium players need to look at non-recourse options whenever possible. Banks need a strong guarantor if they are going to roll up their sleeves and finance speculative projects. We try to help our clients understand that dynamic. If you’re going to pitch a bank with a pro forma model and sales projections, you better have a large and liquid personal net worth, or have way more equity than you thought you were going to need. Leverage levels vary across asset types and lenders, with banks still being the most conservative.

As mentioned, there is plenty of capital out there with attractive pricing and logical structures in the $5, $10, and $20 million range with non-traditional providers. That capital is there for experienced players with the right ideas and proper opportunity memos. There’s opportunity from an asset-type perspective as well, but the challenge is properly connecting the supply of capital with the demand. Most non-traditional lenders don’t advertise like banks do; they have their own vernacular, and some don’t even originate new business directly, but it can be worth the effort.