Single-Family Rental and Build-To-Rent: Does Your Multifamily Lender’s Tenure of Experience in this Asset Class Matter?

Yes, it does! Your lender’s tenure of experience matters more than ever right now.
1. The velocity of deals has never been higher, and deals are competing for attention.
Single-family rental (SFR) is among the fastest-growing and best-performing asset classes within commercial real estate and now makes up about one-third of all renter households. As housing demand outpaces supply, the build-for-rent (BTR) market has emerged as a sector to watch in 2023. Despite rising interest rates, the number of units delivered has been projected to grow 21% this year.
Due to increasing demand, lenders’ SFR screening, origination and product development teams are extremely busy and having their expertise in efficiently assessing and structuring your deals can make the difference between a best-in-class closing and a missed opportunity. Arbor has the expertise to ensure that your deal will not compete for attention, or live on the side of any desks, and can point to our repeat sponsor rate as a testimony of the experience you will have in closing an SFR/BTR deal with us.
2. Experience and consistency build reliability and trust.
Arbor, a perennial industry leader in multifamily financing, has a longstanding SFR/BTR lending practice. Helmed by Steven Katz, whose over 10 years of experience at Arbor capstones a decades-long career in mortgage trading, securitization, banking and servicing, our closely-knit SFR/BTR team partnered with Arbor’s originators to close 50 SFR loans totaling $1.2 billion in 2022.
This is a group of professionals who collaborate on SFR and BTR deals week in and week out and have built reliability and trust among each other, their agency partners, and their clients and borrowers. Their high level of professionalism has been developed through many years of team stability, with relatively few executive departures and low turnover at all levels, even in today’s exceptional labor market.
3. We remain at the table in choppy market conditions.
Arbor is successful because we know what it takes to be successful. Over the last quarter century, we’ve assisted thousands of borrowers with financing multifamily housing in states in all regions of the country. When other lenders pulled back over the last year, Arbor stayed at the table – and has shown our strength in delivering results in volatile markets and rising interest rate environments.
4. As your project evolves and your financing needs change, we smoothly transition with you.
Arbor’s John Tarantino, Senior Vice President, Screening, Single-Family Rental Underwriting and an experienced member of Steven Katz’s team, describes this well: “Not only do our clients benefit from our ability to leverage our Agency relationships, but borrowers can take advantage of ‘cradle-to-the-grave’ financing options through each phase of an SFR multifamily project, from land, through development and construction. Arbor’s in-house bridge loan platform can also provide short-term financing that may be necessary to scale up a portfolio in order to eventually qualify for a longer-term loan solution.”
Arbor excels at providing personal service to the growing SFR/BTR sector. Our keen understanding of the challenges unique to SFR/BTR, such as structuring deals, helps us provide nimble client service, a potential game-changer when land costs are fluctuating or availability is limited.
For example, Arbor’s experienced screening team has the expertise to help SFR/BTR borrowers avoid common pitfalls in the process that tend to derail projects financed by less-experienced lenders. It’s that certainty of execution that has made Arbor a top Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lender year after year.
5. We offer a complete range of SFR/BTR financing products.
Whether it is for a build-to-rent community, purchasing properties and holding for the long term, or acquiring investments to rehabilitate, Arbor has an array of short-term and long-term financing options available to SFR investors:
If SFR and BTR’s growth potential appeals to you, we believe you will benefit strongly from working with our stable team of multifamily lenders who have decades of experience in navigating these options and creatively combining those that will best finance your deal.
Meet Us at IMN’s BTR East in Nashville
Arbor is sponsoring IMN’s 8th Annual Build-to-Rent, Land & Homebuilding Forum in Nashville, Tennessee. John Tarantino will join a panel discussion covering one of Arbor’s SFR/BTR specialties: total-project lending, from land acquisition through development and construction. Steven, John, James Kresl, Robert Mendeles and other deeply-experienced members of Arbor’s SFR- and BTR-focused origination and underwriting teams will be available for meetings. Will you be there? Reach out to [email protected] for a warm introduction to our team.
Interested in the multifamily real estate investment market? Contact Arbor today to learn about our array of multifamily and single-family rental financing options and view our other market research and multifamily posts in our research section.