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.
Notes about the apartment loan rates shown in the chart above: The rates shown here are from one West Coast regional lender for loans on existing apartment buildings between $2.5 – 5.0M. The rate quote they send every Monday that I track is a 30 year amortizing loan with a fixed rate for 10 years (They also have shorter fixed periods at lower rates). The max LTV for this loan is 75% (they have an even lower rate on their max 60LTV loans) and the minimum Debt Cover Ratio (DCR, aka DSR or DSCR) is 120. Note too that these are ‘sticker’ rates, LTVs and DCRs and ‘your millage may vary’ depending on how the underwriting goes. I usually figure that we’ll end up at a 70LTV which also helps the debt cover and provides a larger margin of safety, which is half the battle from a value investing standpoint.
The prepay fee is 5,4,3,2,1% for early repayment in the first five years and you do have the ability to get a 90 day rate lock. The minimum loan is $500k and they’re pretty good to work with as long as you go in knowing that it takes up to 60 days to close their loan. If you are looking at acquiring an apartment building in California, Oregon or Washington I’d be happy to recommend you to my guy there for a quote. Send me a message through this link and I’ll get you connected.