After an exceedingly strong Q1 followed by the transition to remote work in Q2, the W&D team adapted to selling, underwriting and closing financings and property sales in Q3 and Q4 to generate record total transaction volume of $41.1 billion for the year, up 29% from 2019.
We closed out 2020 with record Q4 revenues of $350 million, up 61% over -- year-over-year pushing our annual total revenues to $1.1 billion.
And in 2015, established the goal of more than doubling our revenues to $1 billion by 2020.
As you can see on this slide, we grew total revenues an impressive 18% compound annual growth rate over the five-year period and grew debt financing volumes by a 17% compound annual growth rate to end 2020 at $35 billion.
And our servicing portfolio more than doubled over the five-year period to $107 billion, a 16% compound annual growth rate.
Finally, we grew our property sales business at a compound annual growth rate of 32%.
And even with the pandemic-induced shutdown of property sales for most of Q2 and Q3, we increased our volume to $6.1 billion in 2020, a truly spectacular 14% growth rate over 2019.
All of this growth and record transaction volume generated 2020 diluted earnings per share of $7.69, up 41% over 2019.
As you can see on this slide, we have grown earnings per share at an impressive compound annual growth rate of 24% over the past five years, while maintaining our weighted average diluted share count at around 31 million shares with less than 1% increase in diluted shares over the period due to prudent management of our share count.
And this consistent and dramatic growth in EPS, combined with our annual increase to our dividend that Steve will mention momentarily, has driven total shareholder return of 46% over one year, 107% over three years and 241% over five years, handily beating the market and our peer group.
We just hired employee number 1,000 at Walker & Dunlop.
And while we have had headcount over the past several years, in conjunction with our dramatic growth in transaction volumes and servicing portfolio, we have maintained our industry-leading metric of over $1 million in revenue per employee.
The combination of big company capabilities with small company touch and feel is a competitive advantage in the marketplace, which we aim to maintain going forward, whether we have 1,000 employees or 5,000 employees.
Our website traffic grew by 80% in 2020.
Our email list grew by over 500% and our PR media hits grew by over 400% last year, including an upswing in top-tier and broadcast media.
Compared to last year, we are reaching an audience that is 8 times larger overall, bolstering our brand as the premier commercial real estate finance company in the United States.
While many of our competitor firms were refinancing their own loan portfolios as interest rates dropped at the onset of the pandemic, 66% of our 2020 refinancing volume was new loans to Walker & Dunlop, 66%.
And while technology and talented bankers and brokers generated that growth with existing clients, it was the combination of great bankers and brokers, technology and our expanding brand that allowed us to have 23% of our total transaction volume in 2020, be with new clients to Walker & Dunlop who had never worked with us before.
We ended 2020 with fantastic fourth quarter financial results, including record total transaction volume of $14.2 billion, up 45% year-over-year and record earnings of $2.59 per share, up an astounding 93% over Q4 of 2019.
Our full year transaction volume of $41.1 billion is 29% higher than 2019, while record full year earnings per share of $7.69, increased 41% over the prior year.
Operating margin in Q4 was 34%, well above our target range of 27% to 30%, leading to full year operating margin of 30% for 2020.
Return on equity was 29% for the quarter and 23% for the full year, well above our annual goal of 18% to 20%.
Personnel expense for the quarter was 45% of revenue in line with Q4 of last year and was 43% for the full year, just slightly higher than 2019's 42% due to growth in commission and bonus expense resulting from our phenomenal performance in 2020.
Total transaction volume for the quarter included $2.8 billion of property sales volume, a 44% increase over last year and a quarterly record.
Our fourth quarter debt financing volume was led by agency financing including a record quarter of $844 million of lending with HUD.
Debt brokerage volume totaled $3.8 billion, down 3% from Q4 '19, but up significantly from the second and third quarters of 2020.
Based on the strength of our debt financing volume in 2020, we grew our servicing portfolio by nearly $14 billion or 15% to $107 billion as of December 31, 2020.
As the portfolios continue to grow, the contractual cash servicing fees have grown along with it to $236 million in 2020, up 10% from 2019.
That growth rate accelerated as the year went on, with Q4 servicing fees increasing by 15% over last year to $63 million for the quarter.
This acceleration was due in part to the strong volumes in the second half of the year, but is primarily the result of a sizable increase in the average servicing fee for the portfolio to 24 basis points from 23.2 basis points at the beginning of the year.
This increase is significant when you consider the overall size of our portfolio, and is worth more than $8.5 million of additional annual cash revenue on a portfolio of $107 billion.
In addition, the mortgage servicing rights related to the portfolio now have a fair value of over $1 billion, reflective of the significant future cash flow streams we will receive from the portfolio beyond just the next year.
Consequently, we ended our planned conversion to a new servicing system, resulting in a $5.8 million charge to expense either we took during the quarter related to the write-off of previously capitalized software costs and a termination payment on the contract.
During the fourth quarter, we recorded additional provision for credit losses of $5.5 million.
We delivered record earnings in a year in which we have taken provision expense of $37 million, $30 million more than in all of 2019.
2020 adjusted EBITDA of $215.8 million was down 13% from 2019, primarily due to a significant year over decrease in escrow earnings, resulting from historically low interest rates during the year.
2020's low interest rate environment reduced our annual escrow earnings to $18 million compared to $57 million in 2019.
As a reminder, we currently hold escrow deposits on loans that we service with an average balance of $2.8 billion, and we earn interest income tied to short-term rates on those deposits.
Every 25 basis point increase in the deposit rate translates into approximately $7 million of additional pre-tax earnings per year.
We ended the year with $321 million of cash on the balance sheet.
To that end, our Board of Directors voted yesterday to increase our quarterly dividend payment to $0.50 per share, a 39% increase.
This is our third annual increase since we initiated the dividend in February of 2018 at $0.25 per share.
This results in a cumulative increase of 100% since we started the dividend.
The current annualized dividend of $2 represents a payout ratio of 26% on 2020 net income and 29% on 2020 adjusted EBITDA, a level that we feel is appropriate given our expectations for continued growth in earnings and strong cash flow going forward.
Finally, our Board authorized a share repurchase plan in the amount of $75 million to be executed over the next 12 months, giving us the ability to continue opportunistically buying back our stock.
We're raising our operating margin target range to 29% to 32% for 2021 and our return on equity range to 19% to 22% for the year.
With respect to the first quarter of 2021, remember that last year included $2.1 billion of the Southern Management transaction.
And that while the annual projection for 2021 is in line with 2020 around 50%, leisure travel could snap back quickly once herd immunity is thought to be achieved.
And while Walmart is working hard to compete with Amazon and online retail, John underscored the fact that in Q2 of 2020, at the height of the pandemic shutdown, only 16% of total U.S. retail sales were online, and that 84% of sales still ran through bricks-and-mortar stores.
We established the mission to become the premier commercial real estate finance company in the United States when we went public in 2010 with less than $100 million in revenues and a market capitalization of $220 million.
10 years later, we have revenues of over $1 billion, a market cap close to $3 billion, and yet the mission remains the same.
The components of the Drive to 2025 are to grow revenues to $2 billion, by expanding our annual debt financing volumes to $65 billion, grow our servicing portfolio to over $160 billion, grow annual property sales volume to $25 billion, grow our fund management business to over $10 billion in assets under management and the continued development of three new growth businesses: small balance lending, our appraisal business surprise and investment banking.
To achieve $65 billion in annual debt financing, we will first become the largest multifamily lender in the country.
Our $35 billion of debt financing in 2020 included $24 billion of direct multifamily lending.
As shown on this slide, in 2019, we held the number five spot in the multifamily lender rankings with $16.7 billion.
As you can see, our 2020 volume of $24 billion would advance us to the number one spot, if the other lenders stood still or moved back in their lending volumes during the year.
Our 2025 property sales goal of $25 billion is very ambitious.
Part of our investment banking strategy will involve continuing to grow our asset management business, Walker & Dunlop investment partners to $10 billion in AUM by 2025.
If we achieve the component parts of the Drive to 2025 over the next five years, we will grow revenues to $2 billion and diluted earnings per share from $13 to $15.
It is incredibly exciting for me, having worked with our team over 15 years to establish three incredibly ambitious five-year growth plans that we all achieved to reset our sights on a new set of objectives that our team is already pursuing.
Before we conclude the call, I'd like to offer my sincerest gratitude to my 1,000 colleagues at Walker & Dunlop, for making 2020 the incredibly successful year that it was.

Summary:
We closed out 2020 with record Q4 revenues of $350 million, up 61% over -- year-over-year pushing our annual total revenues to $1.1 billion.
We ended 2020 with fantastic fourth quarter financial results, including record total transaction volume of $14.2 billion, up 45% year-over-year and record earnings of $2.59 per share, up an astounding 93% over Q4 of 2019.
To that end, our Board of Directors voted yesterday to increase our quarterly dividend payment to $0.50 per share, a 39% increase.
Finally, our Board authorized a share repurchase plan in the amount of $75 million to be executed over the next 12 months, giving us the ability to continue opportunistically buying back our stock.