MULTIFAMILY INFLUENCER: Bellwether Enterprise
Bellwether Enterprise’s motto is “Capital on a Mission.” That is, the firm seeks to make an impact beyond the bottom line, for the good of both its clients and the communities it serves.
Bellwether Enterprise’s motto is “Capital on a Mission.” That is, the firm seeks to make an impact beyond the bottom line, for the good of both its clients and the communities it serves. That’s apropos given its parent company, Enterprise Community Partners Inc., a nonprofit corporation that creates and advocates for quality affordable housing. The largest privately held, employee-owned mortgage banker in the country, Bellwether Enterprise directs a large portion of its profits to supporting its parent company.
The full-service commercial and multifamily finance firm has tripled in growth in the past five years. In 2017 alone, it closed 689 transactions, totaling over $6 billion in loan volume. It’s on a similar track for 2018, having closed $3.3 billion year-to-date. Its growth and vision have been spearheaded by a team of principals who lead some 300 employees 29 production offices across the country.
President Ned Huffman has been working in the commercial real estate mortgage banking industry since 1985. Prior to Bellwether, he was founder and CEO of Capstone Realty Advisors, where he and the management team developed the business into a leading Midwest mortgage banking company with over $10 billion in mortgage servicing assets and an annual loan origination volume averaging over $2 billion.
Deborah Rogan, EVP, also has nearly 30 years of experience in the industry, and oversees the firm’s servicing, servicing acquisition, closing and operations activities. Todd A. Harrop, EVP and national director of capital markets, is responsible for overseeing all of the company’s nationwide market rate transactions. Phil Melton is EVP and national director of affordable housing and FHA lending, while EVP Marty Clancy is also national servicing manager.
But the company credits the entire team for Bellwether Enterprise’s success—and indeed many of its loan originators have 25-plus years of experience in the CRE finance industry.
In keeping with its nonprofit heritage, Bellwether Enterprise is one of the country’s largest LIHTC syndicators and one of the largest New Markets Tax Credit allocatees. It also finances market-rate multifamily, alongside affordable housing, cooperative buildings, manufactured housing, age-restricted housing, and student housing.
The company is a licensed Fannie Mae DUS lender, a Freddie Mac Program Plus seller/servicer, a Federal Housing Administration Multifamily Accelerated Processing approved lender and a US Department of Agriculture Rural Housing Service lender. It also provides proprietary permanent and bridge financing primarily in the form of nonrecourse, first mortgage debt for the acquisition or refinancing of stabilized multifamily properties, as well as bridge financing for pre-stabilization multifamily properties expected to meet permanent financing criteria within 36 months of closing.