Written & reviewed by Stephen A. Sobin, President of Select Commercial Funding LLC
North Dakota
North Dakota Apartment Loans
Select Commercial arranges North Dakota apartment loans from $1,500,000, up to 80% LTV, with rates as low as 5.87%. We compare Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, bank and bridge programs to fit your property. For larger balances, see multifamily loans. See current rates on every loan type we offer.
Get a Free QuoteFinancing Options in North Dakota
North Dakota apartment, multifamily and commercial properties each have dedicated financing. Pick the page that matches your property:
Financing more of the state? See North Dakota commercial mortgages.
Financing in another state? Explore our apartment loans, multifamily loans and commercial mortgages nationwide.
North Dakota Apartment Loan Rates
Rates updated as of September 14, 2026
| Loan Type | Rate* | Max LTV |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Year Fixed | 6.27% | Up to 80% |
| 7 Year Fixed | 6.33% | Up to 80% |
| 10 Year Fixed | 6.39% | Up to 80% |
| Loan Type | Rate* | Max LTV |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Year Fixed | 5.87% | Up to 80% |
| 7 Year Fixed | 5.94% | Up to 80% |
| 10 Year Fixed | 5.99% | Up to 80% |
- Streamlined underwriting for institutional multifamily
- Cash-out refinances are acceptable
- Interest-only and non-recourse options
- Minimum 1.25x debt-service-coverage ratio
Rates last updated September 14, 2026. Rates and maximum LTV shown represent our best-case pricing scenarios. Actual rates, LTV, and loan terms are subject to underwriting approval and may vary.
Compare North Dakota Apartment Loan Programs
As a broker we compare every program for your best-fit North Dakota apartment financing:
| Program | Typical rate* | Max leverage | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fannie Mae Small Loan | 6.20% | Up to 80% | Non-recourse, fixed to 30 yrs |
| Freddie Mac SBL | 6.31% | Up to 80% | $2M to $10M small balance |
| FHA / HUD | 6.40% | Up to 85% | Highest leverage, longest term |
| Bank / portfolio | 6.35% | Up to 75% | Flexible, value-add |
| Bridge | 9.00% | Up to 80% LTC | Reposition, lease-up |
Most apartment lenders look for a debt-service-coverage ratio (DSCR) of at least 1.25x.
2026 North Dakota Apartment Loan Market
North Dakota is one of the few states where the apartment lending question is partly about who is allowed to lend rather than only about the building. It is the only state in the country with a state owned bank, and that changes what a small local lender can do for a borrower here. That is covered below, and for a buyer coming from out of state it is the most useful thing on this page.
Where rents stand. As of August 2026, average asking rent in Grand Forks was $1,322, up 6.24% over the year. Fargo, the largest city in North Dakota, was $1,155, up 3.04%. Bismarck did not carry a published figure on the same basis at the time of writing, so we do not quote one. These are RentCafe figures for professionally managed buildings of fifty units and up.
These are among the lowest absolute rents in the country, and that is the central underwriting fact. The bedroom spread in Fargo as of August 2026 ran about $797 for a studio, $985 for a one bedroom, $1,169 for two bedrooms and $1,535 for three. A studio at under eight hundred dollars is roughly a third of what the same unit asks in Boston or the Bay Area, while the roof over it, the boiler under it, the insurance on it and the person managing it cost close to the same. At these rent levels the expense ratio does more to determine the loan amount than the rent line does, and a well run North Dakota building supports meaningfully more debt than a comparable one that is not. Forty six percent of Fargo rentals fall between $1,001 and $1,500 a month.
The offset is basis and the absence of a supply overhang in the eastern markets. Price per unit in the Red River valley is low, going in yields are high, and Fargo and Grand Forks are not competing against a lease-up wave. What North Dakota asks of a borrower is not optimism about rent growth. It is documentation of steady operations, and in the western part of the state, several years of it.
What that means for your file. North Dakota apartment loans are sized on demonstrated in place income at a coverage ratio. Where the property sits matters more here than in most states, because the eastern and western halves of North Dakota have had completely different decades.
Across North Dakota we arrange apartment building loans from $1,500,000 through agency, bank, FHA and bridge programs. Rate and leverage follow the rent roll and the trailing twelve months of operating income.
North Dakota Markets We Finance
North Dakota divides cleanly into the Red River valley in the east, the Missouri River corridor in the center and the Bakken country in the west, and those three have had very different histories over the last fifteen years.
Fargo, West Fargo and the Red River valley
The largest apartment market in North Dakota, at about $1,155 as of August 2026 and up 3.04% over the year. Fargo runs on healthcare, a large state university, technology and back office employment, agriculture and agricultural equipment manufacturing, and it functions as the regional center for a wide area reaching into Minnesota. West Fargo has taken most of the metro’s recent residential growth. This is the deepest part of North Dakota for agency small balance, bank and credit union competition, and the only market in the state where an out of state lender is likely to have an existing view. Flood risk along the Red River is a genuine parcel level question in this metro rather than a regional one, and a lender will want the flood zone determination, the elevation certificate where applicable and the flood policy alongside the rent roll.
Grand Forks
The strongest rent growth in North Dakota as of August 2026, at about $1,322 and up 6.24% over the year, and notably more expensive than Fargo despite being considerably smaller. Grand Forks carries a state university, an air force base, healthcare and an aerospace and unmanned systems cluster that has grown around the base and the university. As in any market with a large university, be explicit at the outset about whether a building near campus leases conventionally or by the bed. The air force base gives part of the tenant base a reassignment driven turnover pattern that is worth explaining rather than leaving an underwriter to discover in the rent roll.
Bismarck and Mandan
The state capital and the center of the Missouri River corridor. Bismarck runs on state government, a major regional medical presence, energy administration and a retail and services role covering central and western North Dakota. It did not carry a published rent figure on the same basis as the other markets at the time of writing, which is itself a signal about how much fifty unit and larger professionally managed inventory the market contains. Files here are built on the property’s own record rather than on market data.
Minot, Williston, Dickinson and the Bakken
Western North Dakota is the part of the state that requires the most care and the most history. These markets absorbed an extraordinary amount of apartment construction during the Bakken expansion, on demand that arrived very quickly, and they then had to live through what followed. Any western North Dakota file should be read across a full cycle rather than a single year, and a borrower who can show what occupancy, rents and collections did through both the expansion and the contraction is holding the most persuasive document available in this market. Minot also carries an air force base, which gives it a demand floor the purely energy linked towns do not have. These are community bank and small balance agency markets, underwritten conservatively and with a long look back.
Rent figures above are average asking rents across professionally managed buildings of fifty units and up as of August 2026. Where a North Dakota market is not quoted, no figure was published on that basis and we would rather say so than repeat one we cannot stand behind.
North Dakota Has a State Owned Bank, and It Changes Who Can Lend to You
The Bank of North Dakota is the only state owned bank in the United States, and its existence is the reason a small North Dakota bank can sometimes hold a loan larger than its own balance sheet would suggest. If you are buying an apartment building here and you have written off the local bank on size, you may be leaving your best execution on the table.
How it actually works, in the Bank’s own description. The Bank of North Dakota does not accept applications directly from borrowers. It operates through financial institutions as a secondary lender, and a lead lender has to originate the loan. Its Bank Participation Loan Program exists, in the Bank’s words, for the situation where a borrower’s financing needs have outgrown the legal lending or exposure limits of the originating lender. Loan amounts are described as negotiable rather than capped. Qualifying uses include business and industrial acquisitions, construction and modernization, real estate and equipment purchases, start up and working capital, and refinancing, and a first mortgage on commercial real property is expressly listed among the acceptable forms of security.
Why that matters to an apartment borrower. Community banks have legal lending limits tied to their capital. In most states that limit is simply where the conversation ends: a bank that cannot hold your loan declines it, and you go looking for a larger institution that does not know your market. In North Dakota there is a mechanism that lets the local bank stay the lead lender on a loan it could not carry alone. The relationship, the local knowledge and the underwriting judgment stay with the institution that actually understands Minot or Dickinson, and the capacity comes from elsewhere.
Two practical rules follow, and they are easy to get wrong. First, do not approach the Bank of North Dakota directly. It does not take borrower applications, and an approach made that way simply does not go anywhere. Start with a North Dakota financial institution and let that institution consider whether a participation is appropriate. Second, do not eliminate a community bank from your process on the assumption that your loan is too large for it. Ask the question explicitly, because the answer in North Dakota is not the same as the answer in most other states.
Where this fits alongside everything else. This is one route among several and it is not a substitute for the agency, life company and CMBS execution that may price better on a larger, stabilized property. The value of running a competitive process in North Dakota is precisely that the local bank route and the national capital markets route are both genuinely available, and they win for different reasons on different properties. On a smaller building in a western North Dakota market where national lenders are cautious, local capacity may be the difference between a loan and no loan. On a stabilized Fargo asset of size, agency debt is likely to price tighter. Comparing them properly is the job.
None of this changes how the property itself is underwritten. Coverage, expenses, occupancy history and condition still decide the loan amount. What it changes is the range of lenders who can realistically compete for it, which is a different question and, in a state this size, a valuable one.
Refinancing a North Dakota Apartment Building
North Dakota refinances are sized on coverage rather than value in essentially every case, because basis per unit is low enough that the loan amount runs out of net operating income long before it runs out of loan to value. That puts the exercise squarely on the expense line.
The rent roll and the trailing twelve months, and more in the west. Proceeds are set by in place income at a debt service coverage ratio near 1.25x. In Fargo and Grand Forks twelve full months of actuals covering a complete heating season is usually enough. West of Bismarck, send several years, and send occupancy by month rather than an annual average.
Twelve months of actual utility billing. This is the highest value document a North Dakota owner can add. Winters here are among the most severe in the country, heating is a major line, and the difference between a building where residents pay their own heat and one where the owner does is large enough to move the loan amount materially. Where the owner pays, an actual billing history across a full season beats any estimate an underwriter would otherwise apply.
Flood documentation in the Red River valley. Flood zone status is a parcel level question in the Fargo metro, not a regional one. Send the determination, the elevation certificate where applicable and the current flood policy. Where a building sits outside a mapped zone, say so plainly rather than leaving it to be established.
The envelope and the plant. Freeze and thaw cycles, roofs, windows, boilers and parking surfaces are where a North Dakota property condition report concentrates, and the resulting reserves come straight off the income used to size the loan. Equipment replaced in the last several years belongs in the file with invoices.
Cash out is available and is sized the same way. Agency, bank, credit union and life company lenders will all consider cash out on a stabilized North Dakota apartment property, and in this state the local bank route described above may also be available. The constraint is the coverage math, not the program. The fastest way to find out where you stand is to send the rent roll and the operating history.
North Dakota Multifamily Financing
Apartment loan and multifamily loan describe the same debt: financing secured by a building with five or more residential units. We arrange it throughout North Dakota, from a small Minot walk up to a stabilized Fargo portfolio, and the terminology has no effect on how the file is underwritten.
In North Dakota, both loan size and lender capacity decide who competes. Smaller balances usually price best with North Dakota banks, credit unions and the agency small balance programs, with the participation mechanism described above sometimes extending what a local institution can hold. Larger balances open the field to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, life companies and CMBS, and multifamily loan rates there are frequently tighter because the loan is large enough to securitize. The trade is a heavier package: full appraisal, property condition report, environmental review, and sizing driven by net operating income, debt service coverage and debt yield.
North Dakota multifamily lenders settle two questions before most others: what the heating and utility structure does to the expense ratio, and whether the property sits in the part of the state that needs one year of history or the part that needs five. Answer both with documents and the file moves. Send the rent roll and the trailing twelve months and we will tell you which multifamily lenders are sharpest on your property, and what multifamily financing looks like at that size.
North Dakota Apartment Loan Types We Serve
We arrange financing across North Dakota for:
- Urban high-rise apartment buildings
- Suburban garden apartment complexes
- Small apartment buildings with 5+ units
- Underlying cooperative apartment loans
- Portfolios of small apartment and rental properties
- Mixed-use and other multifamily property
Apartment Loans Across North Dakota
We arrange apartment loans throughout North Dakota. Fargo, West Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, Mandan, Minot, Williston, Dickinson, Jamestown, Devils Lake and Wahpeton are all financed through the same agency, bank, credit union and FHA programs. What changes from one market to the next is the local economic driver, how much operating history a lender will want and whether flood documentation is part of the file, not the shape of the file itself.
For larger balances see our North Dakota multifamily loans. For office, retail, industrial and owner occupied property see North Dakota commercial mortgages, and nationwide we lend in most major U.S. cities.
Recent Apartment Loan Closings
A sample of apartment and multifamily loans we have arranged for investors nationwide.
Other Property & Loan Types We Finance in North Dakota
As a full-service commercial mortgage broker, we arrange North Dakota financing across every major property and loan type:
We consider commercial loan requests of all sizes, beginning at $1,500,000.
What Our Clients Say
“I am a veterinarian who purchased an existing practice. I was surprised to find a company that offered 100% financing at a good rate, with great terms and rates for medical office financing.”
Carol K. · Chicago, IL“I spoke to several commercial lenders before finding Select Commercial. They got me a lower rate and their service was exceptional. If you need a multifamily loan, you need to talk to Stephen.”
Nathan B. · Philadelphia, PA“Select Commercial was very helpful with my multifamily mortgage. Stephen went over several options and we came up with the best lender to meet my needs. I got the funds and also lowered my payments.”
Gary M. · Portland, OR“Select Commercial offered 100% financing for my medical practice when my bank would have required 20% down. They delivered something my bank could not, and handled everything professionally.”
John C. · Boston, MAGet Your North Dakota Apartment Loan Quote
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- For 5+ unit and commercial properties, $1.5M and up
North Dakota City Spotlights: 2026 Apartment Market Notes
Beyond the major metros, we finance apartment buildings across North Dakota. Current market notes for cities where borrowers ask us to lend:
- Fargo: median 1-bedroom rent about $1,000, flat year over year (Zumper, August 2026), the state’s largest apartment market.
National baseline for context: the U.S. median rent was $1,388 in July 2026, down 1.1% year over year, with rental vacancy near 7.2% (national rent report, July 2026). Each city above links to our local commercial mortgage page, and we finance 5+ unit apartment properties in every North Dakota market from $1,500,000.