For thirty years, Gil Vilkas has been the attorney that New York’s most demanding real estate clients call when the deal is too complex, the timeline too tight, or the stakes too high. Now, as a Mortgage Loan Originator with R&J Capital Group, LLC, he is bringing that same dealmaker’s precision to the mortgage process — with a singular mission: to close the loans others can’t close or the ones that others walk away from.
THE MAKING OF A DEALMAKER
Born in New York on August 3, 1967, Gil Vilkas is the firstborn son of Elliott Vilkas — a Cuban exile and celebrated Manhattan architect whose high-rise residential towers redefine the city skyline — and Ella Vilkas. A first-generation American shaped by his father’s immigrant tenacity, Gil earned an Accounting degree from SUNY Binghamton before fast-tracking through New York Law School, completing his Juris Doctor in a remarkable two and a half years. He is admitted to the New York State Bar and Connecticut Bar and has never looked back.
THIRTY YEARS. EVERY DEAL. EVERY BOROUGH.
From Montauk to Buffalo, Vilkas built one of the New York Metropolitan area’s most respected transactional real estate practices — representing buyers, sellers, developers, and financial institutions with equal facility. He ran his own firm for over twenty-five years, earning a reputation not merely for legal precision, but for an uncommon gift: the ability to make a developer’s vision financially and legally bulletproof. To this day, clients who sat across from him two decades ago recite his counsel word for word. That is not a legal record. That is a legacy.
BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR
As a member of the Executive Board of Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation, Vilkas did what he always does — he found the deal hiding in plain sight. He conceived and executed the build-out of 20,000 square feet of dormant raw space into a prestigious catering venue, single-handedly reversing the institution’s financial trajectory. The congregation’s survival is, in no small part, his doing. He enjoys using he the same tenacity and formula to save other not-for profit institutions.
A NEW CHAPTER. THE SAME STANDARD.
Gil Vilkas joined R&J Capital Group, LLC — a licensed mortgage broker he has been affiliated with for thirty years — as a full-time Mortgage Loan Originator. Armed with a law degree, an accounting foundation, and three decades of transactional intelligence, he brings something the mortgage industry rarely sees at the origination level: a lawyer who has sat on every side of the closing table.
His philosophy is blunt: the “one size fits all” mortgage is a disservice to the homeowner. Every borrower has a story. Vilkas reads it, structures around it, and closes. He specializes in the transactions that stall other loan officers — the complex, the unconventional, the ones everyone else has declined. That is his competitive advantage. That has always been his calling.
PERSONAL
Gil Vilkas is the father of three daughters — Brooke, Isabella, and Remy — and remains deeply rooted in the New York community he has served throughout his career. He resides in Long Beach, NY and Boca Raton, FL. He is the eldest of four siblings in a family defined by professional distinction: David Vilkas, a physician brother, Naomi Greenblatt, a physician sister, Yael Cik, a speech pathologist and a family name synonymous with excellence.