Apartment Finance | Ashworth Partners

Apartment Building Financing Outlook for 2014

Apartment building investment loans in 2014, thoughts and predictions on what’s in store from lenders large and small and the organizations who represent them:

Greystone via MultiHousingNews: We do think there will be more capital available,” says Bob Barolak, co-COO at Greystone. Lenders will become even more eager to make loans in the multifamily space, he says, because of greater confidence in the economy and markets.

Another major reason for an expected bump in capital available in the next 12 months is that CMBS financing has come back into the multifamily sector—from a volume of practically zero in 2012. They will continue to increase market share significantly in 2014.” Currently, CMBS multifamily financings are carrying interest rates of about 5.10 to 5.20 percent, or about 10 to 15 basis points lower than rates in Fannie Mae transactions, according to Barolak.

Maximum LTVs on CMBS loans—up to 75 percent on 10-year terms for multifamily properties—have also become competitive with those of Fannie and Freddie loans. Moreover, CMBS lenders can become “extremely aggressive” for deals they want to acquire to round up a securitization pool, Barolak says. In such instances, “they can dramatically lower the interest rate significantly below what Fannie and Freddie will offer.”

Life insurance companies are another Continue reading Apartment Building Financing Outlook for 2014

Apartment Loan Rate Rises Faster than Treasuries as Spread Widens

Happy New Year everyone. Loan rates from the lender we track have risen over the last few weeks as the ten year Treasury (T10) has climbed about 25 basis points (bp) and the spread between the two has widened about 10 basis points. At 221bp though it remains tighter than a year ago when it ranged in the 270bp area.

Apartment Building Investment Loan Rate and 10yr Treasury Spread — Click on Image for full size.

Speaking of the spread between the T10 and the ten year apartment loan rate, now that Continue reading Apartment Loan Rate Rises Faster than Treasuries as Spread Widens

5 Key Trends from the ULI Report for Apartment Building Investors and Commercial Real Estate Pros

The Urban Land Institute/PriceWaterhouseCoopers annual report on Emerging Trends for Real Estate 2014 was released last week and apartment building investors and commercial real estate pros have some good things to look forward to next year. Note that this post refers to the Americas version of the report with separate sections on Canadian and Latin American markets but they also publish Asia-Pacific and European editions as well. This is the 35th edition of the report is it’s based on individual interviews or surveys from more than 1,000 investors, fund managers, developers, property companies, lenders, brokers, advisers, and consultants.

Here are the 5 key trends we should all be aware of with my comments:

Survey participants continue to rank private direct real estate investment as having the best investment prospects. Pretty expected from this group but the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) recently released its property performance index for the third quarter of 2013 and on a trailing 12-month basis, the index’s return was 11.0 percent, split about 50/50 between income and appreciation. A pretty nice return compared to fixed income rates and a much safer looking bet than buying equities at their all time highs.
Dependence on cap rate compression to drive value is being replaced by an emphasis on asset management. Especially in the 24 hour gateway markets apartment building cap rates are about as low as they can get (well until you look at Vancouver BC) so property performance has to come from actually making the property perform. You also have the problem of what to do with your proceeds if you do sell, as you would be reinvesting right back into the same cap rate market that you sold in… unless you changed to a higher cap rate sector, suburban strip centers anyone?
Opportunities to develop property are finally appearing in sectors other than multifamily. CBRE Econometrics had a piece out last week showing that large (> 350k sf) warehouse properties are being snapped up as fast as they’re being built. Maybe developers who moved over to doing apartments the last few years will move back to their home sectors and ease off on the new supply of multifamily units.
Value-added investment ranked highest in terms of investment strategy; distressed properties and distressed debt ranked last. We were licking our chops a few years ago waiting for RTC 2.0 fire sales to begin and while we were able take down some bank owned inventory, the anticipated tsunami of defaults on commercial loans never materialized. At this point most everything has been extended and pretended into performing status or sold off and so it’s back to making money the old fashion way: Finding and/or creating value.
Both equity investors and lenders are widening their search for business to include secondary markets and niche property types. This will be a double edged sword for investors who are focused on those secondary and tertiary markets as debt financing will be more available but there will also be more competition from sophisticated outsiders with deep pockets. The key will be to make them your buyers so dig in, find the right properties and tie them up quickly.

As always with real estate, sectors and markets are so distinct from one another it’s almost pointless to generalize as the chart above attempts to do so next week I’ll dive into the apartment sector to see what gems they’ve unearthed. Meanwhile for the Continue reading 5 Key Trends from the ULI Report for Apartment Building Investors and Commercial Real Estate Pros

Good News on Latest 10yr Treasury, Apartment Building Loan Rates and Spread Chart

In more good news for apartment building investors, both the 10 year Treasury and apartment loan rates have moderated since the Fed’s “non-taper” announcement in mid-September. The spread between the T10 and the 10 year apartment loan rate we track has come in as well. Since 9/16 the Treasury has drifted down from 2.88% to yesterday’s quote of 2.53% while the loan rate has moved from 5.282 down to 4.921, bringing the spread in to 2.381 from 2.402. The average spread for 2013 has also narrowed to 2.573%:

Notes about the apartment Continue reading Good News on Latest 10yr Treasury, Apartment Building Loan Rates and Spread Chart

Multifamily Loan Rates Moderate Then Dip, Good For Apartment Building Investors.

10 year apartment building loan rates had been in a range the last few weeks until Ben Bernanke ‘failed to taper’ last Wednesday causing the bellwether 10 Year Treasury to fall about a dozen basis points to today’s quote of 2.72%. This is good news for apartment building investors, home buyers and builders, stock market speculators, just about everyone except savers, retirees and the people running retirement plans. The upside is that loan rates may head lower but the downside is the economy and particularly employment haven’t improved enough to ease off the money printing pedal.

Here’s the latest chart showing the T10, the 10 year fixed apartment rate we track and the spread between the two:

This week’s quote for a 10 year fixed rate, 30 year amortization apartment loan is 5.131%. (See below for more detail on this loan). The other thing noticeable on the chart is that the spread between the rates has been below the yearly average consistently since the beginning of July. In fact the average spread has fallen to 2.602 from 2.661 over that period. Partly because 4.5% was about as low apartment rates were going to go no matter how far down Treasuries went but also I think that lenders are getting more aggressive, especially in the multifamily sector.

Continue reading Multifamily Loan Rates Moderate Then Dip, Good For Apartment Building Investors.

Apartment Building Loan Rates Rise as 10yr Treasury jumps 31bp in Ten Days

After two weeks of holding at 5.068% the apartment loan rate we track rose to 5.274%, pushed higher by the 10yr Treasury moving up 31 basis points in the last week and a half. The spread between the two remained below the 2013 average of 2.628, coming in at 2.394:

This means that the monthly payment on a $1,000,000 apartment building investment loan with 30 year amortization would rise from Continue reading Apartment Building Loan Rates Rise as 10yr Treasury jumps 31bp in Ten Days

10yr fixed apartment loan rate remains below 5.1% as 10yr Treasury ranges in 2.6-2.7% area

The rate on the 10yr fixed (30yr amortization) apartment building loan we track stayed in the 5.0-5.1% range for the second week while the spread to the 10yr Treasury remained in the 240 area, still lower than the 2013 average of 264:

The narrower spread makes sense in light of the July Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending that reported loosening lending standards for commercial real estate loans (including apartments) even as loan demand picked up: Continue reading 10yr fixed apartment loan rate remains below 5.1% as 10yr Treasury ranges in 2.6-2.7% area

10yr Treasury back in 2.6% range bringing apartment loan rates up. The spread also widened but remained below 2013 average.

Quick update: The 10 year Treasury (T10) climbed back up into the 2.60% range while the 10 year fixed apartment building loan we track moved up to 5.033%. The spread between them widened to 242bp but remains below the 2013 average of 265bp. This week we’ve added the darker green line to show the average spread between the T10 and the apartment rate on the chart. Note that it uses the Right Hand Scale along with the spread itself:

10 year Treasury rate vs 10 year fixed apartment building investment loan July 2013 — 10yr Treasury Rate via St. Louis Fed’s FRED data, contact us about the apartment loan rate and details: www.ashworthpartners.com

For details on the apartment loan we track see the notes in last week’s post here: Apartment Building Loan Rates Fall as Spreads Narrow.

How the St. Louis Fed calculates the 10 year Treasury rate displayed above: “Treasury Yield Curve Rates. These rates are Continue reading 10yr Treasury back in 2.6% range bringing apartment loan rates up. The spread also widened but remained below 2013 average.

Apartment Building Loan Rates Fall as Spreads Narrow

Back on June 24th I wrote a post Analysis on Tapering QE3 talking about how traders fears about the end of the Fed’s money printing spree made the interest rate on the 10 year Treasury jump. And as I mentioned in a follow up post Update on the 10yr Treasury rate we care about the 10yr Treasury (or T10) because it’s the benchmark most lenders base long term loan rates on. But there is one more component of apartment loan rates (and lending rates in general) that I want to draw your attention to. First an updated chart:

I’ve updated the chart with the latest rates and also added the rate for an apartment loan with a fixed rate for 10 years from one of our lenders (details on the loan terms below). The other thing I added was the spread, or difference, between the two rates (on the Right Hand Scale). So far in 2013 the spread has averaged 2.65% or 265 basis points (bp) but it’s not a fixed amount that the lender adds to the T10. You can see that back in the beginning of May when the Treasury rate got as low as 1.66% the spread widened to 280bp because the loan rate was left at 4.5%. Then the spread narrowed back towards the average even while interest rates went up from there.

Then the Fed meeting notes came out in the middle of June and the T10 shot up but we got a double dose because the spread jumped up too. The Treasury went from 2.19% on the 17th to 2.57% on the 24th, and the spread jumped from 262pb to 283. It makes sense that in the uncertainty of a sudden rise in rates that lenders would widen their spreads to create a little breathing room but since then things have gotten quite interesting… in a good way. The good news is that since then the spread has Continue reading Apartment Building Loan Rates Fall as Spreads Narrow

Update on the 10yr Treasury rate which drives Multifamily, Commercial Real Estate and Home loan rates.

In the Analysis on Tapering QE3 post Tuesday I included a chart of the US 10 year Treasury rates and you could see them going vertical in the days since the Fed announcement and Bernanke’s press conference last week. We’re in the middle of negotiations on an apartment acquisition with a client and so what interest rates do over the next few days and weeks is extremely important to us. So here’s the updated chart:

10 year Treasury rate chart YTD 2013 — Click for full size image. *Treasury Yield Curve Rates, commonly referred to as “Constant Maturity Treasury” rates, or CMTs. This method provides a yield for a 10 year maturity even if no outstanding security has exactly 10 years remaining to maturity. More at www.treasury.gov

We concentrate on the 10 year Treasury because that is the benchmark most lenders base their long term rates on. In order to lure investors away from Treasuries to buy mortgage bonds lenders have to Continue reading Update on the 10yr Treasury rate which drives Multifamily, Commercial Real Estate and Home loan rates.