Multifamily

While the government passed sweeping measures last year to prevent mass homelessness among renters, there was no targeted help for mom-and-pop property owners who provide much of America’s affordable housing.

At first the deal seemed an unlikely marriage of two mortgage-heavy companies. But acquiring the Michigan company would help New York Community accomplish its two chief goals — reducing deposit costs and its concentration of multifamily loans — while giving it the scale to pursue more deals.

However, the number of borrowers who failed to remit payment but were not yet 30 days overdue increased.

About 3.4 million renters believe themselves to be at risk of eviction, but when the moratorium ends, the actual number may be between 130,000 and 660,000, according to a Zillow report published Monday.

New assistance for renters may help but past efforts, while necessary, failed to get relief to renters in an expedient way, said David Brickman, who is now the head of a new agency lending platform backed by Barings and Meridian Capital.

The agency will allow an additional three months of forbearance for multifamily property loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as long as tenant protections are offered.

Redfin expects the FTC to be more open to its proposal to buy RentPath than it was to CoStar’s earlier offer, Chief Financial Officer Chris Nielsen said.

The company purchased $1.1 trillion of single-family mortgages and $83 billion of multifamily loans during 2020.

Volumes should rise this year but it could become more difficult to get loans for certain property types, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

While loan performance is improving in aggregate, some borrowers remained unaware of the relief available or were unable to access it, according to the Research Institute for Housing America.

First Foundation is relocating its corporate headquarters to Dallas, where the tax burden is lighter and it sees more opportunity to beef up lending, add wealth management clients and pursue acquisitions of community banks.

The yet-to-be-named platform is acquiring the assets and liabilities of Barings Multifamily Capital LLC, pending approvals from federal government-sponsored enterprises.

The company is exploring a range of options to diversify its balance sheet, but new CEO Thomas Cangemi says the best plan of attack is to merge with or acquire another institution.

The Biden administration could encourage the FHFA to increase the caps or restore exclusions for certain types of loans, which would boost overall volumes.

Fitch and Trepp reported that overall commercial mortgage-backed security delinquencies were down, while the MBA reported a slight increase.

The multifamily lender named Michael Levine as board chairman, succeeding Dominick Ciampa, who held the role for 10 years. The move comes less than a week after longtime CEO Joseph Ficalora abruptly retired and was replaced by Thomas Cangemi.

The recent stimulus law’s relief for renters and extension of the federal eviction ban were meant to ward off a housing crisis. But owners of 1- to 4-unit dwellings still face mounting mortgage and property tax debts, and delinquencies could start rising soon — followed by foreclosures.

A real estate firm focused on gentrifying neighborhoods is showing cracks after a group of its apartment buildings in New York’s Upper West Side and Harlem filed for bankruptcy.

The switch to Thomas Cangemi from longtime CEO Joseph Ficalora could foreshadow a push to curtail the company’s reliance on multifamily lending and the pursuit of a bank acquisition that lowers funding costs.

Longtime chairman and CEO Joseph Ficalora will step aside Thursday as head of the regional bank and be succeeded by CFO Thomas Cangemi.