Author: ipgocorp

CARRBORO, NC – Emma Capital Investments announced the acquisition of a 250-unit garden-style community, 180 West Apartments (formerly named Landmark at Chelsea Crossing), located in Carrboro. This is Emma Capital’s 3rd investment in North Carolina and its 21st acquisition in the U.S., adding to Emma Capital’s total portfolio to date of approximately 5,000 apartment units.

180 West was built in 1987 and contains 250 residential units in 19 two story buildings.  The Property offers 6 spacious floor plans made up of 49 One-bedroom units, 125 Two-bedroom units, and 76 Three-bedroom units, averaging 1,051 square feet per unit.  The property enjoys a well-maintained community in which residents enjoy a relaxing, comfortable life-style with beautiful landscaping, an outstanding large unit and an attractive amenity package. The community features a beautiful swimming pool area, tennis courts, fitness center, clubhouse and laundry facilities.

The Property is ideally positioned in the Triangle region of Durham, Chapel Hill and the state capital Raleigh, which is consistently ranks nationally as best place to live, work and obtain a world-class education. The Property is two miles south west of more than 22,000 jobs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care. The Property also benefits from The Triangle’s employment centers in Durham and Research Triangle Park including; IBM Corp, GlaxoSmiteKline, Fidelity Investments, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Cree Inc. and AW North Carolina. The Property is 5 minutes from Highway 501 and 54, providing connectivity throughout the Triangle region.

“We are very excited about this acquisition,” stated founding Partner and Co-Owner Haya Zilberboim. “The Property is located in one of the strongest submarkets in the South-East, Chapel Hill, with close proximity to some of the finest universities, health facilities and research centres in the United States.”  The strength of the market and the strong amenity package of the Property provides Emma Capital with the opportunity to immediately focus on rent growth initiatives such as income-boosting unit interior upgrades.”  

“We are extremely excited about our expansion into The Triangle area,” added Partner and Co-Owner Oz Cohen. We continue to execute on our growth strategy with quality assets and leverage our experience and relationships to access phenomenal opportunities in quality markets. We intend on continuing to expand our presence in our current markets as well as continue to continue our expansion to other Southeast submarkets such as Nashville, Louisville and Tampa.”

JACKSONVILLE, FL – Robbins Electra, a national multifamily owner-operator that has been rapidly growing its portfolio over the past 12 months, announced the strategic acquisition of yet another quality multifamily asset in Florida: Maple Glen, a 358-unit apartment community in Orange Park, Florida.

The property was purchased from Starwood, and will be rebranded as The Parkland at Orange Park.

This is Robbins Electra’s eighth property in the Jacksonville region, where multifamily market fundamentals remain strong, and its first acquisition of 2017.

Last year, the company completed over $1 billion in multifamily acquisitions across the southeastern U.S. Robbins Electra’s portfolio now includes more than 22,000 apartment units totaling over $2.5 billion in value.

Robbins Electra will carry out a multimillion dollar property renovation, upgrading apartment interiors and adding or enhancing community amenities.

“We were excited by the opportunity to acquire another quality multifamily asset in the vibrant Jacksonville metropolitan area and add it to our growing national portfolio,” said Joe Lubeck, CEO of Robbins Electra. “This is one more step in our mission to provide high-quality, reasonably priced, rental housing and outstanding living environments to the hard-working people in our communities.”

The Parkland at Orange Park is located at 1863 Wells Road, convenient to major traffic corridors and retail destinations such as the Orange Park Mall and Home Depot. The low-rise property is composed of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with average monthly rents of approximately $850. The community offers residents resort-style amenities, including a business center, clubhouse, fitness center, two swimming pools, among others. The property is currently 95% occupied.    

Robbins Electra is national multifamily owner-operator specializing in multifamily acquisition, repositioning and property management.  It owns and operates properties in Georgia, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. 

ATLANTA, GA – In a time when affordable housing is hard to find, Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) works to preserve viable options for low-income, senior and disabled Atlanta residents. The Atlanta Housing Authority, along with Columbia Residential, JM Wilkerson, Wells Fargo and others, hosted a Hard Hat Celebration to publicly mark the preservation.

The high rise at Juniper and 10th streets, in the heart of one of the city’s most sought-after neighborhoods, is being completely renovated and modernized to provide 149 high-quality senior and non-elderly disabled housing units.  The majority of the existing residents will return to the building upon completion of the renovations.

“The charge to preserve affordable housing for Atlantans is top priority for us at AHA,” said Catherine Buell, president and CEO of Atlanta Housing Authority. “To make it a win-win for all requires collaboration and commitment of strategic partners, just as we have with Juniper and 10th.”

Daniel Halpern, chairman of the AHA Board of Commissioners said, “The board is proud of the work Catherine Buell and the AHA staff have done to bring this project to fruition. In order to expand affordable housing in Atlanta, we have to ensure that we maintain what we already have. We’re doing exactly that at Juniper and Tenth.”

“Columbia Residential is pleased to partner with the Atlanta Housing Authority and our other partners in their effort to provide affordable housing in close proximity to the services the residents will most need,” said Noel Khalil, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Columbia Residential. “We all know about the demand for affordable housing options in our region, and we are proud to work with an entity like the AHA that champions our work to maintain quality housing opportunities for those who need it most.”

During renovations, residents were relocated to other affordable housing with the option to return upon renovation completion. Renovations are expected to be completed by December 2017.

HOUSTON, TX – Real estate industry veterans Chetan Davé and Martin Lamb recently closed on the first multifamily property acquisition of their new investment fund, Clearlake Urban Transitions Multifamily Fund I.

The 67-unit, Class C property, the Delta One Apartments, is in the gentrifying greater Oak Forest neighborhood, just northwest of The Loop in Houston.

“This first fund acquisition, while on the small side for us, is consistent with our strategy to acquire infill, under-invested Class B and C apartments properties in neighborhoods undergoing positive transition, implement exterior and interior improvements, and offer an enhanced value proposition to tenants,” said Davé.

The strategy is familiar to them.  Previously, the pair were involved in a down-to-the-studs renovation of a 48-unit complex in the nearby Heights area of Houston, where they nearly doubled their investment in less than two years. 

Overall, the investment is Davé and Lamb’s fifth multifamily investment together since they both returned to the US four years ago.  Both are Wall Street veterans; Davé was an executive at JPMorgan Partners in New York for 8 years, while Lamb worked at Northstar Capital, the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds and AIG Global Real Estate. 

Davé was also Chief Investment Officer at Transwestern in Houston before helping launch and lead the $630 million Sun-Apollo Real Estate Fund, the first institutional opportunistic investment fund focused on India. Lamb subsequently worked in senior roles in development and real estate investment management with Morgan Stanley and Russell Investments in Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney, Australia.

Davé and Lamb met twenty years ago in Manhattan and reconnected later in Singapore; collectively they embody more than 50 years of institutional real estate investment experience. Now, with their Fund’s first closing accomplished, they are seeking similar investments through Texas and southeastern US, including Florida. 

Lamb added, “We feel there is a lot of opportunity out there, as many well-located older properties need fresh capital and a well-thought-out business plan to achieve their potential.  All new supply is Class A, so new competition is less of a worry for us than hitting the sweet spot between improving the properties while not pricing yourself out of your target tenant market.”

The Fund, sponsored by Clearlake Management LLC, has offices in Houston, TX and Naples, Florida, and continues to raise capital.  Davé said, “Our high-net-worth and family office investors are telling us that, when facing a volatile equity market and a bond market battling rising interest rates, hard assets like real estate with low volatility, strong current return and some inflation hedging characteristics are attractive to them, and we do agree.”

(RECAP: While the city has implemented some measures from its plan to expand affordable housing, other measures remain undone. The city’s 2013 Housing Master Plan (HMP) recommended 23 specific measures — or “tools” — to increase affordable housing. These tools include zoning ordinances, funding assistances, and other city programs. Eight have the highest potential to expand affordable housing, some proponents say. Of these high-impact tools, the city has implemented four so far, according to a Jan. 5 progress report from the Office of Housing.)

MCLEAN, VA – The Freddie Mac Multifamily Research Group released its 2017 Multifamily Outlook on demand, vacancies and rent growth nationally and in the nation’s top metro markets.

At the national level, oversupply risks are expected to be kept in check by steady absorption rates, a modest drop in multifamily starts, stable employment growth, new household formations and changing lifestyle preferences that favor rental housing.

Vacancy rates are expected to top 5 percent nationally for the first time since 2011.

Rents are expected to grow at their 2016 pace and exceed historical averages for another year. Overall, gross income growth is expected to average 3.4 percent in the nation’s top 70 metropolitan markets. Performance in individual metros will vary based on local supply and demand characteristics.

“Demand for rental units is at a historic high due to demographic changes and lifestyle preferences, but increasing new supply and other factors are likely to moderate multifamily market growth in 2017,” said Steve Guggenmos, Freddie Mac Multifamily vice president of research and modeling. “In particular, landlords are likely to pull back on rent increases as new supply enters the market and vacancy rates rise.”

“Looking at our list of top ten markets, we see the west coast remain a dominant player but moving away from the Bay Area to other western cities — Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma and Portland — and a number of less likely candidates — Jacksonville, Phoenix, and Tampa — moving up the rankings in the coming year,” Guggenmos added.

Freddie Mac Multifamily is the nation’s multifamily housing finance leader. Nearly 90 percent of the rental homes we fund are affordable to families with low to moderate incomes.

BOISE, ID – Walker & Dunlop announced that it structured a complex pair of refinance loans totaling $29,788,000 for a continuing care retirement community (“CCRC”) consisting of a skilled nursing facility and an independent and assisted living complex in Boise, Idaho. 

This unique financing structure required two different lenders to fund two separate loans for one property with one existing mortgage. Garden Plaza of Valley View and Valley View Skilled Nursing Facility make up the combined CCRC; Fannie Mae financed the independent and assisted living portion and the United States Department of Housing and Development (HUD) placed the debt for the skilled nursing facility.

Walker & Dunlop adeptly navigated the intricate specifications of both HUD’s independent living unit requirements and Fannie Mae’s restrictions on skilled nursing revenue.  The Company’s team was able to create a condominium structure to ensure the property qualified for HUD skilled nursing financing as well as a Fannie Mae assisted living and independent living loan.  In addition, an equity recapitalization component was included in the Fannie Mae debt.

Senior Vice President, Michael Vaughn, and Vice President, Kevin Giusti, led Walker & Dunlop’s origination team and worked with BrightSpace Senior Living (“BrightSpace”), the Tennessee-based borrower, to place the debt assignments.  Mr. Giusti commented, “The financing solutions structured by Walker & Dunlop through HUD and Fannie Mae for a nearly 300-unit single standing Continuing Care Retirement Community brought on many hurdles to overcome.  My hat goes off to everyone involved.  Through the team’s creativity and hard work, we were able to provide solutions to overcome the hurdles and ensure the borrowers objectives were accomplished.”

Chief Financial Officer for BrightSpace, Greg Echols, said, “The complexity of the structure and timing for this transaction makes it unlikely to be repeated in our company – and perhaps in our industry – but it resolved a unique refinance opportunity for a single legal entity operating independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing facilities at one location.  We are proud to celebrate with our attorneys, lenders, broker, and consultants for what we believe is a ‘once in a career lifetime’ financing achievement.”

The Company structured a $9 million loan with a 35-year, fully amortizing term for Valley View Skilled Nursing Facility using HUD’s Section 232/223(f) program.  This program provides lenders with the Federal Housing Administration’s mortgage insurance to protect against losses when refinancing nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and board and care facilities.  The CCRC’s skilled nursing component was built in 1986 and consists of 24 private and 40 semi-private units.

The loan executed with Fannie Mae for Garden Plaza of Valley View was $20.8 million with a 10-year term, followed by a 30-year amortization schedule.  This portion of the CCRC, containing 142 independent living and 51 assisted living units, was built adjacent to the existing skilled nursing facility in 1992.

Substantial renovations to the CCRC were completed in 2009, including common area upgrades, new roofing, and the addition of a physical therapy building.  The campus is centrally located in the state’s most populous county, just minutes from the Boise Towne Square Mall and adjacent to the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. 

NEW YORK, NY – Trepp, a leading provider of information, analytics, and technology to the CMBS, commercial real estate, and banking markets, released its January 2017 US CMBS Delinquency Report.

The Trepp CMBS Delinquency Rate dropped slightly in January, despite a large amount of debt that became newly delinquent. The delinquency rate for US commercial real estate loans in CMBS is now 5.18%, down five basis points from December.

This move is the first rate decrease in five months, and just the second in the past eleven months. Though the large amount of debt slated to mature in 2017 will mitigate the likelihood of future rate drops, that trend was bucked for at least one month. The delinquency rate is now 86 basis points higher than the year-ago level.

The amount of CMBS loans becoming newly delinquent continues to rise, as that total reached nearly $2 billion in January. However, loans that were previously delinquent but paid off with a loss or at par totaled about $1.8 billion. The removal of those previously distressed assets helped offset the impact of new delinquencies. Additionally, just over $700 million in loans were cured last month.

“The volume of maturing CMBS debt that could not be refinanced at its maturity date continued to surge last month,” said Manus Clancy, Senior Managing Director at Trepp. “Though this would normally lead to a higher monthly delinquency rate, the rate was pushed lower by an unusually large number of resolutions for delinquent loans. Whether this is a blip or the beginning of a trend remains to be seen.”

The largest delinquency rate increase among major property types in January was incurred by the industrial sector, as that segment’s reading jumped 40 basis points to 6.02% last month. Apartment loans remain the best performing major property type, but that sector’s rate surged 24 basis points to 2.96% in January. The retail sector posted last month’s largest rate improvement among major property sectors, as that reading fell 27 basis points to 6.10%.

The report can be found at Trepp.com

NEW YORK, NY – Mortgage rates were only slightly changed this week, with the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate inching higher to 4.33 percent, according to Bankrate.com’s weekly national survey. The 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.26 discount and origination points.

The larger jumbo 30-year fixed was unchanged at 4.31 percent, and the average 15-year fixed mortgage rate stepped up to 3.51 percent. Adjustable mortgage rates were down slightly, with the 5-year ARM slipping to 3.49 percent and the 7-year ARM sliding to 3.71 percent.

Mortgage rates showed little movement in a week punctuated by the Federal Reserve holding interest rates steady and financial markets in a holding pattern, pending developments on government stimulus. Mortgage rates are closely related to yields on long-term government bonds. The likelihood of reduced regulation, and the possibility of tax cuts and additional fiscal stimulus through infrastructure spending, had buoyed hopes for faster economic growth ever since Election Day. But investors are getting antsy for some details, and without that it will be difficult to assess the path of the economy in 2017 and beyond.

At the current average 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 4.33 percent, the monthly payment for a $200,000 loan is $993.27.

SURVEY RESULTS

30-year fixed: 4.33% — up from 4.32% last week (avg. points: 0.26)
15-year fixed: 3.53% — up from 3.51% last week (avg. points: 0.23)
5/1 ARM: 3.49% — down from 3.51% last week (avg. points: 0.29)

Bankrate’s national weekly mortgage survey is conducted each Wednesday from data provided by the top 10 banks and thrifts in 10 top markets.

For a full analysis of this week’s move in mortgage rates, go to www.bankrate.com

The survey is complemented by Bankrate’s weekly Rate Trend Index, in which a panel of mortgage experts predicts which way the rates are headed over the next seven days. This week the panelists are divided, with 40 percent expecting further increases while another 40 percent predict that mortgage rates will remain more or less unchanged over the next week. Just 20 percent forecast a decline in mortgage rates in the coming week.

(RECAP: Fannie Mae’s Day 1 Certainty, introduced in October, is one of the latest efforts to push the technology envelope while managing risk for lenders, adding certainty to their process, and improving the mortgage experience for all parties. One component of Day 1 Certainty is helping lenders validate income, assets, and employment electronically in Fannie’s automated underwriting system, Desktop Underwriter. Validation is performed through designated vendors and provides relief from representations and warranties on validated loan components, addressing risk up front in the lending process. This change allows mortgage originators to lend with confidence. Day 1 Certainty’s other components include enhanced property inspection waivers on certain refinances with rep-and-warrant relief on property value, condition, and marketability.)