WASHINGTON, DC-Fannie Mae priced its fifth Multifamily DUS REMIC this week. The offering, which totaled $789 million, went to market under its Guaranteed Multifamily Structures program.

Fannie Mae has been tweaking this program in recent months, using new managers, for example. This issuance had a new twist as well—the inclusion of shorter-term collateral in a separate tranche, Kimberly Johnson, vice president of Multifamily Capital Markets, explains to GlobeSt.com. “Having tranches with different maturities was very favorably received,” she says, “and it brought in new buyers.” The deal was subscribed at two-and-a-half times and three-times, depending on the tranche, she says.

For both tranches, the collateral was very strong, with almost identical debt service coverage ratios and LTVs, of approximately 1.61x and 68%, respectively. The new tranche, though, had maturities of three-and-a-half to six-and-a-half years, while the second tranche stuck to Fannie Mae’s traditional execution of five-year and 10-year terms.

Fannie Mae thought it would offer a shorter maturity after watching the interest in a similar offering by Freddie Mac, Johnson says. The appeal is obvious—rates are so low that some investors don’t wish to be locked into longer-term securities. “We had 26 investors in this deal, and of that amount 25% were new to us,” Johnson said. “We will definitely be looking to do additional issuance at the shorter end of the curve.”

The settlement date for the REMIC is July 30, 2012. The lead manager is Citigroup and the co-managers are Amherst and RBS. Last year Fannie Mae closed $6 billion in issuances via its GeMS program.