The Hottest Multifamily Marketplace

Though slightly less glamorous than a rare Van Gogh sale at Christie's, multifamily loan auctions are all the rage these days for both GSEs and the private sector.

Apartment loans have always been attractive because of the stability of the underlying collateral, Auction.com EVP and managing director of global commercial real estate Ken Rivkin tells us. The high-quality, seasoned loan portfolios typically come from portfolio lenders rebalancing their portfolios, including depositories, REITs, insurance companies, money managers, and select funds, he says. Auction.com was just tapped to sell 447 performing multifamily loans with an unpaid principal balance of $601.3M. (So the stakes are a little bit higher than bidding on a Pearl Jam bootleg CD on eBay.) The portfolio: 7.5% fixed-, 92.5% floating-rate; and an average current balance of $1.3M. The loans are secured by 465 properties (18,456 units) in 23 states, with 60% in California and 11% in Texas.

Attractive due to the loans' seasoning, amortizations, and coupons, Ken says, this pool comes online on the heels of Freddie Mac's first multifamily bulk loan sale. The GSE sold 27 performing mortgages (tied to multifamily, student housing, and assisted-living facilities) with an unpaid principal balance of $195M to an affiliate of Colony Capital. Multifamily loans are viewed positively because of the asset class's low volatility, he tells us. Other income-producing properties like office and retail typically have fewer tenants, thus a higher concentration of credit risk from tenant defaults. And for that reason, vacancy spikes are usually less pronounced in apartments due to lack of tenant concentration, he says.