The last two months have been “an interesting time” for Deborah Jenkins, who was originally set to assume the role of head of multifamily operations at Freddie Mac at the beginning of the year. But she started about two months early — just as the market entered into a period of extreme volatility.
Despite the wild ride in the market, the early start date was no problem for the industry veteran; Jenkins has been working in the trenches at Freddie Mac for the last ten years.
Jenkins joined Freddie Mac in 2008 when the GSE was developing the K-Deal pilot under David Brickman to work on the program. She was there when the pilot-turned-platform generated its first $1 billion in deals for the year–a notable achievement given that the CMBS market was frozen at that time and the GSEs had been moved into conservatorship. From there, she says, the platform took off and today it is its signature offering.
In 2010, Jenkins took over national underwriting and credit for the entire multifamily platform. She remained there until CEO Don Layton announced his retirement and Brickman, who previously led the GSE’s multifamily business operations, moved into the role of president. He is also being considered as a potential replacement for Layton.
As for Jenkins, she is relishing her new role. “It’s a great platform, wonderful management team, the business model we have put in place is being followed by the overall housing finance market,” she tells GlobeSt.com.
GlobeSt.com caught up with Jenkins to talk about what she has planned for her tenure as head of multifamily as well as other topics. Here are some of her thoughts.
On Freddie’s performance at the end of the year.
More than 30% of our volume happens at the last quarter of the year and in the last couple of years it has been upwards of 35%-40%. This December was very active for us with a high number of K-Deals in the market. Fortunately for us, our spreads did widen but not to the extent that the rest of the market did including our competitor across the river.
On what remains the same under her leadership.
We are going along the same path of the business model we have established. Innovative products, innovation through leadership and our reputation in terms of certainty of execution will remain the same.
And on what is different.
We are embarking on a multi-year digital transformation project, which began a few months ago. A lot of what we do is absolutely right for digitizing, for automation, for creating efficiency, for making it faster and cheaper. Originating mortgages faster, for instance, make everyone better off.
About the multifamily market.
We are expecting another record year in 2018 and we expect 2019 to be relatively on par in terms of our numbers. We are probably looking at 3% growth for the market overall based on MBA numbers. The demographics remain favorable in terms of renting versus owning. Multifamily will continue, in our view, to continue to be the preferred investment type in commercial real estate.