Lenders Vie for Las Vegas Multifamily Deals
Acquisition financing for Allanza at the Lakes in Las Vegas reveals strong lender interest in the emerging market.
“Lender demand for a deal such as this is strong. Multifamily product is still the capital market’s favorite property type,” Ory Schwartz of NorthMarq Capital, tells GlobeSt.com. “Lender appetite is definitely strong in Las Vegas for multifamily. The Las Vegas apartment market has seen consistent and solid growth over the past several years.”
TruAmerica has a value-add business strategy for the asset, and plans to renovate the property and hold for five years. The investor secured green advantage acquisition financing through the Freddie Mac’s 10-year floating rate program. “The sponsor was seeking a maximum leverage floating rate loan with five years of interest only,” says Schwartz. “Because of the type of loan the sponsor was looking for, the agencies were the best fit and ultimately Freddie Mac was more aggressive than Fannie Mae on this one.” Additionally, TruAmerica is a Freddie Mac select sponsor.
In completing for the deal Freddie Mac was able to provide better leverage and terms than its Fannie Mae counterpart. “Freddie Mac was able to get to a bit more than 70% of the purchase price with an aggressive spread, five years of interest only and a flexible prepayment penalty,” says Schwartz. “This type of structure works perfect for the sponsor who is seeking to renovate the property, and then sell in approximately five years.”
The lower interest rate environment has also had an impact, according to Schwartz, both on value and deal volume. “Attractive fixed rate loans are helping keep values high and cap rates low,” he says. “Additionally short-term rates are still somewhat attractive and lender spreads have contracted. The lower interest rate environment has essentially given buyers/borrowers the ability to get higher leverage based on the DCSR constraint generally being the governor on loan proceeds.”