Arbor Realty Suspends Its Dividend as Shares Plunge 73% in 2026

Arbor Realty Trust (NYSE:ABR) has stopped paying its common dividend. On its third-quarter earnings call on October 30, management said the board had suspended the quarterly payout effective immediately. Shares traded at $1.87 premarket on November 3. That is a 35.29% fall over the past week and 73.36% year to date.

Arbor is a mortgage REIT. It lends to multifamily and single-family rental properties instead of owning buildings itself. When rates rise, Arbor’s borrowers struggle to refinance, property values fall, and delinquencies climb. CEO Ivan Kaufman said 10-year Treasury yields rose 140 to 160 basis points over nine months, which cut multifamily values by roughly 5% to 15%.

Management Says the Cut Is About Cash

Ivan Kaufman: “Our Board has decided to suspend the quarterly common dividend effective immediately, which will preserve $31 million a quarter, or $125 million in annual cash flow.”

Ivan Kaufman put the savings at $31 million a quarter, or $125 million a year. Ivan Kaufman also said Arbor has about $400 million in cash and plans to repay $275 million of unsecured debt maturing in March.

CFO Paul Elenio reported distributable earnings of $0.08 per share. Distributable earnings are the cash-like profit REITs use to set dividends. Paul Elenio also put book value at $10.92 per share, far above the stock price. Non-performing loans rose to 32 with $647.6M of principal, up from 19 loans/$428.8 M at the end of the second quarter.

The payout fell in steps toward zero: $0.43 in early 2025, then $0.30, then $0.17 in August 2026.

Where Arbor Stands Against Two Larger Lenders

Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE:BXMT) cut its dividend to $0.30 from $0.47 but kept paying. Its management said it thinks the new level “can be sustained through a range of rate and credit environments.” Starwood Property Trust (NYSE:STWD) has paid a $0.48 quarterly dividend for over a decade. Both have also fallen less this year: Blackstone Mortgage is down 35.82% year to date, and Starwood is down 22.74%.

What It Would Take to Restart Payouts

Management linked any return of the dividend to clearing out its old loans and foreclosed properties. It expects the old book to shrink from $4.5 billion to about $2.7 billion by year-end and about $1 billion by the end of 2027. Management expects earnings to bottom out over the next 2 quarters, with realized losses continuing for 4 to 6 quarters.

Preferred Holders Have Reason to Watch

When an analyst asked about the preferred dividend, Kaufman said:

“We evaluate everything relative to liquidity. It’s not something we discussed at this Board meeting. But clearly, that’s always a tool that’s out there that management will have the opportunity to evaluate as we go deeper into the next couple of quarters.”

What Arbor’s Dividend Suspension Means for Income Investors

Arbor no longer pays common shareholders anything. What remains is a recovery story built on the gap between book value and the share price, and it depends on management executing its plan. Blackstone Mortgage and Starwood are the peers that still pay a common dividend.

The March debt repayment, quarterly delinquency trends, and rates are the next items to track. The 10-year yield was 4.94% on October 30, down from 5.24% on October 1. Paul Elenio said a move back below 5% should help transaction activity pick up again.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.