Search Results: Freddie Mac

Government agencies continue to be the primary source of financing for multi-family assets, and though both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been consistently widening their spreads, in part to offset the plummeting indices, they remain the most consistent and competitive source of capital in the commercial real estate market.They are now acting more like market makers than government agencies, developing new programs and adjusting their rates and lending criteria frequently in reaction to the volatile markets. Freddie is pricing deals 25 or 30 basis points inside Fannie but is arguably more discriminating and wary of overbuilt markets. Both agencies…

Assisted living and Alzheimer’s care facilities provider Emeritus Corp. capped the end of the year by ensuring there would be no material maturities hanging over its head in 2009. The company wrapped up the $36.3 million refinancing of seven properties through Freddie Mac, a move that allowed it to pay down and extend an existing debt with Capmark. Freddie Mac provided Emeritus with a 10-year loan at a fixed rate of 6.05 percent, and the company quickly put the proceeds to use. Emeritus applied $20.1 million toward the Capmark loan, leaving a $72.7 million balance that the company was then…

Ventas Inc. has sold five senior housing assets with a total of 432 units to Emeritus Corp. for $62.5 million. Emeritus had been leasing the facilities, located in four states, from Ventas. The Chicago-based healthcare REIT also announced Monday that it had agreed to sell Samaritan Hospital in Lexington, Ky., to the University of Kentucky for $35 million in an all-cash transaction. If completed, Ventas expects to gain approximately $18 million from the sale. The transaction could close in the first quarter of 2009. As reported Aug. 4 by CPN, the sale of the five assisted living communities to Emeritus…

President-elect Barack Obama has picked Mary Schapiro to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission. Schaprio was a member of the SEC from 1988 to 1994–originally appointed by President Reagan–and is currently CEO of the non-governmental Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a post she has held for about two years. She also chaired of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for two years during the Clinton administration. Schapiro has a lot a work ahead of her as head of the SEC, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again: SEC: “Anything funny going on here, Mr. Madoff?” Bernie Madoff: “No, not at…

Commercial mortgage delinquencies are up, but still historically low, according to the latest numbers from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The 30-plus day delinquency rate on loans held in commercial mortgage-backed securities rose 10 basis points, to 0.63 percent, in 3Q08, compared with the previous quarter, notes the organization’s third-quarter Commercial/Multifamily National Delinquency Report. Over the past 10 years, year-end CMBS delinquency rates have averaged 0.97 percent. The 60-plus day delinquency rate on loans held in life insurance company portfolios increased to 0.06 percent, or three basis points, and the 60-plus day delinquency rate on multi-family loans held or insured by…

The recent capital-adequacy problems of major financial institutions has increased volatility, decreased liquidity and stalled multi-family property transaction volume, though multi-family volume is clearly ahead of commercial property volumes. This has created significant challenges for multi-family investors gauging expected cap rates and pricing.Now would seem an appropriate time to apply the time-tested principle of triangulation, the process of navigating uncharted waters by measuring the distance to known fixed points, to the difficult questions before investors in commercial real estate.We frame our analysis with three known points compared with the many uncertainties of the marketplace:• current debt and equity return hurdles,…

Ventas Inc. has closed eight first-mortgage loans totaling $126 million through Freddie Mac on eight senior housing communities in three states managed by Sunrise Senior Living Inc. Proceeds of the loan were used to repay in full $71 million of existing debt, secured by the same facilities that was due to mature in mid-2009.The debt, which matures in January 2019, with a possible one-year extension, is 6.5 per cent inclusive of costs, expenses and fees. The borrowers under the $126 million Freddie Mac loan are owned 85 percent by Ventas and 15 percent by Sunrise. KeyCorp Real Estate Capital Markets…

Has the government hit on a bailout method that works? At least partly? Fed intervention to lower mortgage rates might allow some homeowners (those with good credit) to refinance their way out of high post-teaser rates. “After Federal Reserve actions to increase liquidity in the mortgage market, interest rates for fixed-rate mortgages took a dive,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president & chief economist, in a statement this morning. That move led to a rush to refinance last week among mortgage-holders, as reported by CPN yesterday. Now there are indications that the federal government wants to apply more of…

The Institute for Supply Management, which released its manufacturing index for November recently (those numbers were bad), has more bad news for the nation today: U.S. service industries, which constitute about nine-tenths of all domestic economic activity, contracted in November. The index of non-manufacturing businesses, according to the ISM, fell to 37.3, down from 44.4 in October. Anything less than 50 indicates contraction, and the November figure is the lowest ever recorded, though the index has only been around since 1997. Another set of numbers released today offers no comfort either. The ADP National Employment Index, published by payroll processor…

A billion here, a billion there: pretty soon it adds up to real money, such as the $800 billion the Federal Reserve has committed to unclog the credit markets for homebuyers, small businesses and consumers. It’s a new multi-part initiative involving the purchase of about $500 billion of mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, and $100 billion of debt issued by those entities as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks. The Fed is also setting up a $200 billion facility to support consumer finance, with the goal of making student, auto and Small Business…