Nine-Property Seattle M-F Portfolio Gets $155M Freddie Refi

January 18, 2012
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Financing to the tune of $155.3 million has been put in place for a 2,184-unit apartment portfolio in metropolitan Seattle, courtesy of CBRE Group Inc.’s capital markets team. Acting on behalf of the Holland Partner Group and Invesco, joint owners of the nine properties, the real estate services firm arranged the funds for the refinancing of the portfolio through Freddie Mac’s CME program.

“The agency was good to work with and our client appreciated their moving quickly,” Mike Wells, managing director for CBRE’s Portland operations, told Commercial Property Executive. “Particularly with a portfolio or something this large, things might move along slowly but it actually went together quickly and there was a lot to accomplish, so that was appreciated.” The financing came in the form of a seven-year, fixed-rate loan with two years of interest-only, followed by a 30-year amortization.

Holland and Invesco have owned some of the assets since 2004 and the rest since 2005. Spanning several Seattle-area neighborhoods — Lynnwood, Everett, Kent, Tumwater, Renton and University Place — the garden-style apartment properties range in age from 16 to 29 years and boast an average occupancy level of nearly 95 percent.

Current conditions bode well for the continued success of the portfolio, as well as Seattle-area apartments in general “The markets in the Northwest are, overall, recovering economically,” Wells said. “The Seattle-Puget Sound area more so than the rest of the region, in part due to employers like Boeing, which is doing well again, Amazon, Microsoft and others, including a whole host of young entrepreneurial technology companies.”

Essentially, the demand exists and it is on the upswing with no end in sight. “The apartment market has tightened up considerably in the Northwest, with vacancies having decreased considerably and rents moving up, and that looks to be a continuing trend.”