These 124 banks and 13 credit unions all carry a construction and development book large enough to show real activity in this market, and all have a presence in California. Construction lending is a transaction type rather than a property type: the loan funds in draws against work completed, prices off a floating index, and runs for the build period rather than a decade. Most construction loans are short-term and are expected to convert to permanent financing or refinance once the building is finished and leased, so the lender you choose for the build is often not the lender you end up with. Banks dominate this market because draw administration and inspections need a servicing operation; the capital guide compares the alternatives.
Banks Based in California, Largest Construction Books First
25 of 78 qualifying banks are headquartered in California. These are the lenders whose whole business is this market, and the ones most likely to look at a smaller build.
| # | Institution | Construction book | Share of investor CRE | Branches in CA | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | City National Bank (CA) | $2.83bn | 23.3% | 55 | Contact available |
| 2 | Banc of California | $1.87bn | 18.0% | 83 | Contact available |
| 3 | Axos Bank | $1.22bn | 22.5% | 1 | Contact available |
| 4 | East West Bank | $814m | 4.4% | 68 | Contact available |
| 5 | Preferred Bank | $671m | 18.6% | 14 | Contact available |
| 6 | Poppy Bank | $498m | 16.9% | 45 | Contact available |
| 7 | Farmers and Merchants Bank of Long Beach | $418m | 9.5% | 27 | Contact available |
| 8 | Mechanics Bank | $350m | 5.0% | 132 | Contact available |
| 9 | SMBC MANUBANK | $342m | 30.3% | 7 | Contact available |
| 10 | Cathay Bank | $308m | 3.9% | 44 | Contact available |
| 11 | Tri Counties Bank | $298m | 7.4% | 77 | Contact available |
| 12 | West Coast Community Bank | $259m | 19.2% | 11 | Contact available |
| 13 | Community West Bank | $224m | 13.1% | 42 | Contact available |
| 14 | Citizens Business Bank | $214m | 3.4% | 87 | Contact available |
| 15 | Bank of Hope | $213m | 3.7% | 26 | Contact available |
| 16 | American Plus Bank, N.A. | $179m | 26.7% | 4 | Contact available |
| 17 | AvidBank | $164m | 18.7% | 3 | Contact available |
| 18 | Royal Business Bank | $154m | 12.0% | 13 | Contact available |
| 19 | Five Star Bank | $148m | 4.7% | 10 | Contact available |
| 20 | California Bank of Commerce | $134m | 8.1% | 14 | Contact available |
| 21 | Farmers & Merchants Bank of Central California | $115m | 9.6% | 34 | Contact available |
| 22 | Megabank | $114m | 38.0% | 4 | Contact available |
| 23 | Bank of Stockton | $114m | 12.4% | 21 | Contact available |
| 24 | Commercial Bank of California | $113m | 5.9% | 10 | Contact available |
| 25 | Mission Bank (California) | $108m | 17.0% | 8 | Contact available |
National Lenders With Branches in California
25 of 46 qualifying banks are headquartered elsewhere but have offices here. The construction figure is their national book, so read it alongside the branch count — a large book behind a handful of local offices is a different proposition from a bank with a branch network in the state.
| # | Institution | Construction book | Share of investor CRE | Branches in CA | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association | $18.79bn | 11.4% | 860 | Contact available |
| 2 | Wells Fargo | $12.46bn | 12.0% | 769 | Contact available |
| 3 | Bank of America | $9.68bn | 17.5% | 684 | Contact available |
| 4 | US Bank | $9.38bn | 22.5% | 564 | Contact available |
| 5 | Fifth Third Bank | $7.97bn | 36.9% | 86 | Contact available |
| 6 | First Citizens Bank | $7.34bn | 33.4% | 55 | Contact available |
| 7 | Bank OZK | $6.94bn | 40.2% | 4 | Contact available |
| 8 | Pinnacle Bank (Tennessee) | $5.89bn | 21.5% | 1 | Contact available |
| 9 | PNC Real Estate | $5.26bn | 14.3% | 56 | Contact available |
| 10 | Citizens Bank | $4.75bn | 20.7% | 8 | Contact available |
| 11 | BMO Bank | $4.49bn | 21.7% | 226 | Contact available |
| 12 | Western Alliance Bank | $4.08bn | 28.5% | 11 | Contact available |
| 13 | Amegy Bank | $3.22bn | 21.4% | 78 | Contact available |
| 14 | UMB Bank | $2.93bn | 27.3% | 8 | Contact available |
| 15 | Valley National Bank | $2.48bn | 11.0% | 3 | Contact available |
| 16 | Columbia Bank | $2.03bn | 10.4% | 105 | Contact available |
| 17 | Banner Bank | $1.70bn | 33.7% | 32 | Contact available |
| 18 | The Bank of New York Mellon | $1.38bn | 28.7% | 1 | Contact available |
| 19 | Flagstar Bank | $1.37bn | 4.2% | 12 | Contact available |
| 20 | WaFd Bank | $1.33bn | 14.7% | 12 | Contact available |
| 21 | MidFirst Bank | $1.07bn | 16.2% | 6 | Contact available |
| 22 | The Northern Trust Company | $713m | 13.2% | 8 | Contact available |
| 23 | Enterprise Bank & Trust | $663m | 17.6% | 10 | Contact available |
| 24 | Israel Discount Bank of New York | $610m | 14.8% | 2 | Contact available |
| 25 | Beal Bank USA | $400m | 23.6% | 1 | — |
Credit Unions Lending on Construction in California
Showing 13 of 13 qualifying credit unions, largest construction books first — those based in California are tagged HQ, and the rest lend in from elsewhere. They are listed separately from the banks above for two reasons a borrower needs to know: you must be eligible for membership before you can borrow, and credit unions are capped by regulation on how much they may lend to any one borrower. That cap is the last column — it is usually the figure that decides whether a deal fits at all, and it is often well above what they currently hold. Their figures come from NCUA call reports rather than FDIC ones.
| # | Credit union | Construction book | Share of member CRE | Max loan to one borrower | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | America First Credit Union | $254m | 9.2% | $433m | Contact available |
| 2 | CommunityAmerica Credit Union | $128m | 10.4% | $134m | Contact available |
| 3 | Sunward Federal Credit Union | $98m | 12.4% | $61m | Contact available |
| 4 | Valley Strong Credit Union | $61m | 20.1% | $57m | Contact available |
| 5 | First Technology Federal Credit Union | $47m | 1.6% | $450m | Contact available |
| 6 | Ventura County Credit Union | $22m | 8.4% | $22m | Contact available |
| 7 | Citizens Equity First Credit Union | $20m | 2.7% | $148m | Contact available |
| 8 | Nuvision Federal Credit Union | $18m | 7.1% | $72m | Contact available |
| 9 | America's Christian Credit Union | $16m | 4.3% | $11m | Contact available |
| 10 | Global Credit Union | $15m | 0.8% | $189m | Contact available |
| 11 | Redwood Credit Union | $11m | 1.3% | $199m | Contact available |
| 12 | Together Credit Union | $10m | 6.4% | $40m | Contact available |
| 13 | Carolina Foothills Federal Credit Union | $10m | 21.6% | $4m | Contact available |
What this list is, and what it leaves out
A construction book is not a credit box. Every institution here held construction and development loans on 30 June 2026 at 2% or more of its commercial real estate book. That is evidence they lend on construction, and better evidence than a marketing page because it is what they actually hold — but it is not a commitment to fund your project, at your size, in your submarket. Construction underwriting also turns on things this page cannot see: your track record as a sponsor, the general contractor, and whether the project is pre-leased.
More lenders exist than this page lists. 124 banks and 13 credit unions qualified in California. Debt funds and bridge lenders finance a great deal of construction and file no call report at all, and plenty of banks lend on construction without publishing criteria anywhere. Running your deal through the search covers all of them, not just the institutions on this page.
We hold a named lending contact for 133 of them.
Sources. FDIC Call Reports (30 June 2026), the FDIC Summary of Deposits, and NCUA call reports for the same quarter. An institution appears here if its construction and development balance is 2% or more of its commercial real estate book and at least $250,000, and it has a presence in California. The test is deliberately a share, not a dollar floor. A dollar floor is a bank-size filter in disguise: applied to construction, a $5m floor passes 35.7% of banks under $300m against 85.7% of banks between $300m and $1bn, because construction balances at community banks are genuinely smaller — the median bank under $300m reports $2.6m. A share test cannot sort by size, and the $250,000 minimum exists only to exclude rounding noise; it removes eight banks nationally. Construction and development is the call report's own category and covers loans secured by land under development and by structures being built, including the construction phase of projects that become apartments, retail or industrial on completion. Construction book is institution-level and unprorated: no state split of the loan book is published, so an institution lending in several states shows its full construction book on every state page where it qualifies. That is why this page separates banks based in California from national banks with offices here, rather than ranking them against each other on a national figure. The credit union table is a single list in balance order, with in-state charters tagged, because there are far fewer of them and splitting would leave tables of one or two rows. Branch counts are offices in California from the Summary of Deposits; NCUA publishes no equivalent branch file, so the credit union table carries no branch column rather than an invented one. Credit unions are held to a different test: a construction book of $10m or more, and no share test at all. The share test was dropped because a low share on a large book is not an absence of construction lending — at a 10% threshold it would have excluded credit unions holding $85m, $66m and $37m of construction. Share and the single-borrower ceiling are both reported as columns instead, so a reader can judge focus and capacity directly. Max loan to one borrower is the NCUA member business lending ceiling, set at 15% of net worth; it is reported rather than filtered on, because filtering on it would sort purely by institution size. Contact availability refers to whether Lender Compass holds a named contact, not to anything the institution publishes.