Written & reviewed by Stephen A. Sobin, President of Select Commercial Funding LLC
Arkansas
Arkansas Apartment Loans
Select Commercial arranges Arkansas 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 Arkansas
Arkansas apartment, multifamily and commercial properties each have dedicated financing. Pick the page that matches your property:
Financing more of the state? See Arkansas commercial mortgages.
Financing in another state? Explore our apartment loans, multifamily loans and commercial mortgages nationwide.
Arkansas Apartment Loan Rates
Rates updated as of September 10, 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 10, 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 Arkansas Apartment Loan Programs
As a broker we compare every program for your best-fit Arkansas 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 Arkansas Apartment Loan Market
Arkansas is really two apartment markets, and the smaller one is the expensive one. The northwest corner of the state asks considerably more than the capital, and the reason is a corporate concentration that has very little to do with the rest of Arkansas.
Where rents stand. As of August 2026, average asking rent in Fayetteville was $1,445, down 0.15% over the year. Bentonville was $1,314, up 2.91%. Little Rock, the state capital and largest city, was $1,086, up 0.25%. Those are RentCafe figures for professionally managed buildings of fifty units and up, measured on the same basis in all three Arkansas markets.
Note what is happening inside Northwest Arkansas. Fayetteville and Bentonville are twenty five miles apart in the same metropolitan area, and one is flat while the other is up close to three percent. Fayetteville is the university town and Bentonville is the corporate center, and they do not draw on the same demand. Anyone quoting you a single Northwest rent trend is describing an average of two different markets.
Absolute rents in Little Rock are low, and that shapes the underwriting. The bedroom spread there as of August 2026 ran about $888 for a studio, $966 for a one bedroom, $1,140 for two bedrooms and $1,455 for three. At those levels a building earns a fraction of coastal gross income while roofs, HVAC, insurance and management cost close to the same, so the expense ratio does more to set the loan amount than the rent line does. The offset is basis: price per unit in central and southern Arkansas is among the lowest in the country and going in yields are correspondingly high.
What that means for your file. Arkansas apartment loans are sized on demonstrated in place income at a coverage ratio. There is one Arkansas specific rule that catches value add buyers in particular, and it concerns what a renovation does to your property tax assessment. It is set out below, and it is worth reading before you build a renovation budget.
Across Arkansas 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.
Arkansas Markets We Finance
Arkansas divides into the northwest corner, the central corridor around the capital, the river valley and delta towns, and everything else, and the differences between them are large.
Northwest Arkansas: Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville
The most expensive part of the state and the part that behaves least like the rest of it. Benton and Washington counties carry the home offices of some of the largest companies in the country in retail, food production and transportation, together with the substantial supplier and vendor presence that has grown up around them, and the state’s flagship university at the southern end. Fayetteville was about $1,445 as of August 2026 and Bentonville about $1,314, with Fayetteville flat and Bentonville up 2.91%, which is the university and corporate split described above. This is the deepest part of Arkansas for agency, bank and institutional interest, and the only part where an out of state lender is likely to arrive with an existing view. On a Fayetteville property, be explicit at the outset about whether the building leases conventionally or by the bed, because student oriented product is underwritten differently even when it leases conventionally.
Little Rock, North Little Rock and central Arkansas
The capital and largest city, at about $1,086 as of August 2026 and up 0.25%. Little Rock runs on state government, a large medical and academic health complex, financial services, distribution along the interstate crossroads and a regional retail role covering most of the state. It is the steadiest demand base in Arkansas and the least cyclical, and it is also the most affordable of the three measured markets, which is where the going in yields are. Conway and Benton and the central Arkansas ring communities carry newer product at a lower basis than the city.
Little Rock apartment loans · Little Rock commercial
Fort Smith, Jonesboro and the regional cities
Fort Smith on the Oklahoma line runs on manufacturing, healthcare and a regional retail role, and Jonesboro in the northeast on a state university, agriculture and food processing, healthcare and distribution. Both are steady, both have a low basis per unit, and neither generates published apartment rent data on a consistent basis, so the appraisal has to be built property by property rather than looked up. A lender will want more operating history in exchange, which is a documentation question rather than a credit question.
The Delta, the Ouachitas and the rest of Arkansas
Pine Bluff, West Memphis, El Dorado, Texarkana, Hot Springs and Russellville run on agriculture, timber, chemicals, energy, tourism and regional healthcare, at the lowest basis per unit in the state and with the thinnest comparable data. These are community bank and small balance agency markets throughout, where local relationships and a long operating record do most of the work in the underwriting.
Rent figures above are average asking rents across professionally managed buildings of fifty units and up as of August 2026. Where an Arkansas market is not quoted, no figure was published on that basis and we would rather say so than repeat one we cannot stand behind.
A Renovation Can Cost You the Assessment Cap
Arkansas limits how fast an assessment can rise after a countywide reappraisal, and a value add renovation can take your property outside that limit entirely. If you are buying an Arkansas apartment building with a repositioning plan, this belongs in the budget before the contractor does.
The rule. Under Amendment 79 to the Arkansas Constitution, after a countywide reappraisal the taxable value of a property is phased in rather than applied all at once. Homestead property is capped at a five percent increase per year until it reaches full assessed value. Other real property, which includes commercial and therefore an investor owned apartment building, is capped at ten percent per year until full value is attained. That phase in is a real cash flow benefit while it runs, and it is one of the reasons an Arkansas seller’s trailing twelve months can show a tax line below what the property would otherwise carry.
Now the exceptions, and the third one is the one that matters to you. The Arkansas Assessment Coordination Division states that the phase in limitation does not apply to newly discovered property, which is assessed at full value immediately; to new construction, likewise assessed at full value immediately; or to substantial improvements, defined as renovation or reconstruction that adds twenty five percent or more to the value of the property, which are also assessed at full value.
Read that against a value add pro forma. A renovation program large enough to move rents meaningfully is frequently large enough to add twenty five percent to value. If it does, the property does not merely lose the benefit of the remaining phase in. It goes to full assessed value. The tax line in your model, taken from the seller’s statements and grown at some modest rate, is then wrong by whatever the remaining phase in was worth, and it is wrong in the year your renovation completes, which is the same year your interest reserve is thinnest. This is a genuinely avoidable modeling error and we see it made.
What to do about it. Before you finalize a renovation budget on an Arkansas property, ask the county assessor two things. Where is this parcel in its phase in, and what is its full assessed value as against its current taxable value. That difference is the amount at risk. Then model your post renovation tax line at full assessed value rather than at the seller’s figure, and show the lender that you have done so. A borrower who presents a renovation plan with the tax consequence already built in is a materially more credible borrower than one who has to be told.
Two questions the published guidance does not answer, so ask them too. The Assessment Coordination Division’s published material sets out the caps and those three exceptions but does not state how the phase in is treated when a property simply changes hands without improvement, and does not state the assessment percentage or the reappraisal interval that applies in a given county. Those are county level answers. Get them in writing for your parcel before you go under contract, and take them to your lender with the rent roll. It is the same discipline that pays off in South Carolina, Delaware and West Virginia: establish what the tax will actually be under your ownership, in writing, before the appraisal.
Refinancing an Arkansas Apartment Building
Arkansas refinances are sized on coverage rather than value in nearly every case, because basis per unit is low enough that the loan runs out of net operating income long before it runs out of loan to value. That puts the exercise on the expense line.
The rent roll and the trailing twelve months. Proceeds are set by in place income at a debt service coverage ratio near 1.25x. Send twelve full months of actuals rather than an annualized partial year. Outside Northwest Arkansas and Little Rock, send several years, because published market data is not available to fill the gaps.
The current tax bill and the phase in position. If you have completed capital work since you bought, state whether the assessment has been revisited and what it now carries. If you are mid phase in, say so. A lender that discovers a step change in the tax line it cannot explain will size conservatively around it.
Storm and roof documentation. Arkansas sits in a severe convective storm corridor, and hail and wind exposure shows up in the insurance line rather than in the rent line. Send the bound policy and the declarations page, note whether the wind and hail deductible is a flat dollar amount or a percentage of insured value, and document roof age and any replacement to current standards. On an Arkansas file the roof is frequently the single most useful document a borrower can produce.
The property condition report. Roofs, HVAC and the exterior envelope drive the reserve number, and reserves come directly off the income used to size the loan. Capital work completed in the last several years belongs in the file with invoices rather than described in a sentence.
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 Arkansas apartment property. The constraint is the coverage math, not the program. Northwest Arkansas owners who have held through the last several years frequently have more available than they expect, and the fastest way to find out is to send the rent roll and the trailing twelve months.
Arkansas 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 Arkansas, from a Pine Bluff walk up to an institutional Bentonville asset, and the terminology has no effect on how the file is underwritten.
In Arkansas, loan size decides who competes. Smaller balances usually price best with Arkansas and regional banks, credit unions and the agency small balance programs, where knowing the county, its reappraisal position and the building stock counts for a great deal. 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.
Arkansas multifamily lenders settle two questions before most others: what the property tax will be under your ownership once any renovation is complete, and what wind and hail coverage costs at this address. 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.
Arkansas Apartment Loan Types We Serve
We arrange financing across Arkansas 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 Arkansas
We arrange apartment loans throughout Arkansas. Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, Fayetteville, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Conway, Benton, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Hot Springs, Russellville, Pine Bluff, Texarkana and West Memphis are all financed through the same agency, bank, credit union and FHA programs. What changes from one market to the next is the local economy, the county’s reappraisal position and the depth of the comparable set, not the shape of the file.
For larger balances see our multifamily loans. For office, retail, industrial and owner occupied property see Arkansas 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 Arkansas
As a full-service commercial mortgage broker, we arrange Arkansas 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 Arkansas Apartment Loan Quote
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