Multifamily

Fannie Mae set aside $752 million for credit losses in its apartment complex lending business in part because of fraud or suspected fraud, denting profits amid an industrywide scrutiny of borrowers. 

Proceeds from the sale will be used by HomeStreet to pay down Federal Home Loan Bank advances and brokered deposits.

Apartment complexes will be the next major source of problems in the commercial real estate market after offices were hit hard in recent years, according to the short seller Carson Block.

Origination volumes grew across nearly all sectors of commercial real estate on both a quarterly and yearly basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

HomeStreet and FirstSun are working to devise a new formula after the Texas Department of Banking and the Federal Reserve declined to approve their merger application.

The defendant is accused of defaulting on several properties, bought alongside partner companies with names like Satan or Lucifer Management Corps.

The Mortgage Bankers Association anticipates recent developments will change dynamics in the market for lending on income-producing properties.

While the total dollar volume of apartment originations fell last year, the number of companies making loans increased from 2022, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Zillow said the share of listings on its platform that offered concessions topped 33% last month, up from 25% a year earlier. 

Rule changes would come after a fraud investigation uncovered falsified numbers at a leading finance firm, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Rent growth will see a decrease of 2.7% and the vacancy rate will grow to 6%, Freddie Mac predicts.

Institutional investors have an opportunity to "do well while doing good" while advancing a flagship public/private partnership model writes the Chief Growth Officer of Rocktop.

Total housing starts increased 3% to a 1.35 million annualized rate last month, driven by a 19.6% surge in multifamily construction, according to government data released Wednesday.

The new regulation goes into effect in early 2025 for properties financed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

A decline in interest rates during the first quarter drove a Freddie Mac indicator higher for the first time since mid-2023, while a leading investment firm announced a deal aimed at boosting originations for government-sponsored enterprise financing.

The Massachusetts House passed a bill that would ease the process for property owners looking to build accessory-dwelling units.

In talks with OCC officials, "it became obvious that we would not gain near-term approval given their recent experience with multifamily and CRE positions," FirstSun CEO Neal Arnold says. The companies announced other revisions to their deal, too.

Regulatory reform – rather than Biden's proposed solutions – is needed to fix the inventory crisis, some say, but others applauded the president's buyer cost-cutting initiatives.

But a part of the proposal getting mixed reviews extends a risk sharing program that provides capital to housing finance agencies for multifamily loans.

The rebuff Tuesday ends months of deliberations over the cases, which had been fully briefed since late September. The court as a whole gave no explanation for either the rejection or the unusually long delay.