Written & reviewed by Stephen A. Sobin, President of Select Commercial Funding LLC
Our Specialty
Multifamily Loans
Multifamily loans finance apartment properties of five or more units. In practice, a multifamily loan usually refers to larger balances over $6 million, while an apartment loan refers to financing under $6 million. Select Commercial arranges multifamily financing nationwide through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA/HUD and CMBS, non-recourse, up to 80% LTV. Compare today’s commercial mortgage rates.
Get a Free QuoteMultifamily Loan Rates
Rates updated as of August 31, 2026
| Loan Type | Rate* | Max LTV |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Year Fixed | 6.07% | Up to 80% |
| 7 Year Fixed | 6.17% | Up to 80% |
| 10 Year Fixed | 6.25% | Up to 80% |
| Loan Type | Rate* | Max LTV |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Year Fixed | 5.67% | Up to 75% |
| 7 Year Fixed | 5.77% | Up to 75% |
| 10 Year Fixed | 5.85% | Up to 75% |
- 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 August 31, 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.
Multifamily by the Numbers: Q2 2026
Demand outran new supply again in the second quarter of 2026, and the national numbers below come from Cushman & Wakefield’s Q2 2026 U.S. Multifamily MarketBeat. We name the source and the basis because multifamily vacancy is reported two incompatible ways, and mixing them produces nonsense.
- 8.9% national vacancy, down 35 basis points year over year from 9.2%. This is an all-product figure that includes properties still in lease-up.
- 124,600 units absorbed in Q2 2026, up 8% year over year from 115,582 units, against 88,000 units completed, down 27% year over year.
- $1,945 average asking rent, with rent growth at 1.5%, up from 1.1% in the first quarter.
- Demand is outrunning what the labor market alone would predict, in Cushman & Wakefield’s words, with occupancy gains accelerating despite modest job growth.
A note on that vacancy number, because it matters when you compare quotes. Cushman & Wakefield and CoStar report all-product vacancy, which counts units in properties still leasing up. Yardi Matrix and others report stabilized vacancy, which excludes them. The two can differ by more than double on the same market in the same quarter. If a broker quotes you a national vacancy near 4% and we quote nearly 9%, neither is wrong, and neither is comparable to the other. Ask which basis any figure uses before you underwrite from it.
For the full year, Yardi Matrix projects about 1.4% national rent growth in 2026 (forecast published December 2025), “a slowdown, not a decline”, with tight-supply markets growing 5% to 6% and oversupplied Sun Belt metros lagging. See which metros lead for investors in our top markets for multifamily investment in 2026.
Apartment Buildings Under $6 Million
Larger balances are only part of what we do. Select Commercial also finances smaller apartment buildings under $6 million, for 5+ unit properties, through Fannie Mae Small Loan, Freddie Mac SBL, bank and credit union programs. If your property is under $6 million, see our apartment loans page for rates and terms.
Compare Your Multifamily Loan Options
Typical starting points for multifamily loans over $6 million. Rates move daily and every multifamily lender prices a little differently, so treat these as a starting range rather than a quote:
| Program | Typical rate* | Max LTV | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fannie Mae DUS | 5.67% | Up to 80% | Lowest long-term fixed, non-recourse |
| Freddie Mac Conventional | 5.77% | Up to 80% | Agency execution, fixed or float |
| FHA / HUD | 6.12% | Up to 87% | Highest leverage, up to 35-year terms |
| CMBS | 6.49% | Up to 75% | Non-recourse, flexible credit |
Bank and life company financing are also available for stabilized assets. Most multifamily lenders look for a minimum 1.25x debt-service-coverage ratio.
Rates last updated August 31, 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.
Multifamily Lenders and Loan Programs We Use
As a broker we compare every multifamily lender and program, then match your property to the best execution:
Fannie Mae Multifamily
DUS and Small Loan programs, non-recourse, fixed up to 30 years.
Freddie Mac Multifamily
Conventional and SBL programs, up to 80% LTV, fixed or floating.
FHA / HUD Multifamily
Highest leverage and longest fully amortizing fixed terms.
CMBS Loans
Non-recourse conduit financing from $2 million and up.
How to Choose a Multifamily Lender
Most owners start by asking who has the lowest rate. That is the wrong first question, and asking it first is how people end up ninety days into a process with a lender that was never going to close their deal. The right first question is which category of multifamily lender your property actually belongs to, because rate follows from that rather than the other way round.
The five kinds of multifamily lender, and what each one is really buying
Agency lenders place loans with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They want stabilized occupancy, clean operating history and a property that fits a defined box. In exchange you get the longest fixed terms, the most aggressive amortization, and non-recourse. If your property fits the box, this is usually the cheapest capital available to you, and nothing else is close.
FHA and HUD lenders offer the highest leverage and the longest terms of anyone, on fully amortizing thirty-five and forty-year debt. The trade is time and paperwork. If you can wait and your property qualifies, the terms are unmatched. If you need to close in forty-five days, this is not your program.
Banks and credit unions hold the loan on their own balance sheet, which makes them the most flexible on property condition, borrower story and timing, and the most likely to say yes on something unusual. The trade is shorter terms, recourse in most cases, and a relationship expectation. For a smaller property, a transitional one, or a market where national lenders have no data, a bank is frequently the only sensible answer.
Life companies lend their own long-term money and are the most selective of the five. They want the best properties in the best locations with the lowest leverage, and they price accordingly. If you own an A-quality asset and want low leverage and a long fixed term, a life company will often beat the agencies.
CMBS lenders pool loans and sell them as bonds. They are the most tolerant of a complicated story and the least tolerant of anything changing after closing, because the loan gets locked into a securitization with a servicer rather than a relationship. Prepayment is expensive and defeasance is a real cost. CMBS earns its place when the property or the borrower does not fit an agency box and the size justifies the structure.
The three questions that actually decide it
How long do you intend to hold? This matters more than the rate. A ten-year fixed agency loan on a property you sell in year four can carry a prepayment cost that dwarfs whatever you saved on the coupon. A five-year bank loan on a property you hold twenty years means five more financings, five more sets of costs, and five more chances to hit a bad market.
What is the property’s weakest number? Every property has one, and each type of multifamily lender reacts to it differently. Occupancy that dipped last year, an expense ratio that runs high, deferred maintenance in the property condition report, a tenant base concentrated in one employer, a market with thin comparable data. Naming your weakest number first, out loud, is the single fastest way to find out which lenders are genuinely in play. Hiding it costs you sixty days and finds out anyway.
Do you need certainty or do you need the best terms? They are not the same purchase. Certainty of execution has a price and it is usually worth paying on an acquisition with a hard closing date. The best available terms are worth chasing on a refinance where you control the clock.
Why a broker, honestly
A direct multifamily lender can only offer you what it has. That is not a criticism, it is the business model, and a good direct lender will tell you when their product does not fit. But it means the answer you get is bounded by the one balance sheet you happened to call. Running the same property past agency, bank, life company, CMBS and bridge sources at the same time is what tells you what the market will actually pay for your deal, and the spread between the best and worst quote on the same property is routinely wider than borrowers expect. That comparison is what we do. Send the rent roll and the trailing twelve months and we will tell you which multifamily lenders are genuinely competitive on your property and which are wasting your time.
What Multifamily Lenders Ask For
Multifamily financing moves at the speed of the document list. Files that arrive complete get quoted accurately the first time and close on schedule. Files that arrive in pieces get quoted conservatively, because an underwriter who has to guess guesses low.
To quote, we need three things. A current rent roll showing unit mix, in-place rents, lease start and end dates and any vacancies. The trailing twelve months of operating income and expenses, actual rather than budgeted. And a short description of what you are trying to do: purchase or refinance, target loan amount, and how long you plan to hold. That is enough to tell you what is achievable, usually within a day.
To go to application, add the ordinary package. A personal financial statement and schedule of real estate owned for each guarantor. Two to three years of property operating statements rather than one. The current property tax bill and the bound insurance policy with its declarations page. A capital expenditure history for the last several years, with invoices for anything significant. Photographs, and the purchase contract if it is an acquisition.
Then the third-party reports, which the lender orders. An appraisal, a property condition assessment, and a Phase I environmental site assessment. These are paid by the borrower, take a few weeks, and are where most surprises surface. Nothing speeds a multifamily loan up more reliably than an owner who already knows what those reports are going to say.
The items that are not on the standard list but decide files. Whether the property is subject to any recorded restriction on rents, which runs with the land and survives a sale. What the property tax will be under your ownership rather than the seller’s, since several states reset assessments on transfer or on a cycle. Whether the building is separately metered and who pays for heat, which moves the expense ratio more than owners expect. And any concession being granted, because a lender values the property on net effective rent rather than the gross number on the rent roll. Volunteering these four is the difference between a file that gets sized correctly and one that gets re-sized after the appraisal, which is the worst moment for a number to move.
How Multifamily Lenders Underwrite a Loan
Institutional multifamily underwriting turns on a handful of ratios. Knowing them tells you your likely proceeds before you apply.
- DSCR. Agency and most bank lenders look for a minimum 1.25x debt-service-coverage ratio on stabilized multifamily (Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac terms, 2026).
- LTV. Up to 80% on conventional agency purchases, 75% on many refinances and CMBS, and up to 87% on FHA/HUD for qualifying properties.
- Debt yield. Lenders also test NOI against loan amount as a downside check; healthy multifamily requests clear the high-single-digit thresholds lenders use.
- Amortization & term. Agency loans amortize over up to 30 years (up to 35 on FHA/HUD), with fixed terms of 5 to 30 years and interest-only options on lower-leverage requests.
- Recourse. Most agency and CMBS multifamily loans are non-recourse with standard “bad-boy” carve-outs.
We size every request against these metrics up front, then match it to the program that delivers the best proceeds and rate.
Source: Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac multifamily program terms, 2026.
Multifamily: 2026 Outlook
Multifamily spent 2024 and 2025 digesting a historic wave of new supply, and 2026 is the turning point as that pipeline clears. Here is what multifamily lenders are actually looking at when they price a loan this year.
Vacancy near its peak, now easing. National all-product vacancy was 8.9% in Q2 2026, down 35 basis points year over year from 9.2%, with demand outpacing new supply and occupancy gains accelerating (Cushman & Wakefield, Q2 2026 U.S. Multifamily MarketBeat). Note that this counts units in properties still leasing up; stabilized-only measures run materially lower.
Rents soft but firming. Average asking rent was about $1,945 in Q2 2026 with rent growth at 1.5%, up from 1.1% in the first quarter (Cushman & Wakefield). Yardi Matrix projects roughly 1.4% national rent growth for full-year 2026, with supply-constrained coastal and Midwest markets outperforming oversupplied Sun Belt metros. Investor demand is concentrating in a handful of metros, see our top markets for multifamily investment.
Supply is falling and demand is rebounding. Completions fell about 27% year over year to roughly 88,000 units in Q2 2026, while net absorption reached 124,600 units, up 8% year over year (Cushman & Wakefield). Less new competition plus recovering demand supports occupancy into 2027, and it is the single strongest argument a borrower has this year.
Agency capital is expanding. In November 2025 the FHFA raised the 2026 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac multifamily purchase caps to $88 billion each, a combined $176 billion, up 20.5% from $73 billion each in 2025, keeping low-cost agency capital available. Cap rates are expected to hold steady in 2026 with incremental compression as investment volumes recover.
Top Markets for Multifamily Investment in 2026
Where you buy shapes how a deal underwrites. Investor demand in 2026 has shifted toward affordable, high-occupancy Midwest and Sun Belt metros with steady renter demand, while supply-heavy markets clear their construction backlog. The rankings below come from Arbor’s Spring 2026 Top Markets for Multifamily Investment report (data through Q4 2025 to February 2026), scoring the 50 largest metros across ten weighted categories. Nearly 9 in 10 U.S. metros posted year-over-year rent gains heading into 2026.
| 2026 Rank | Market | Finance it | What’s driving the ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indianapolis | Indiana | Rent growth above the national average for 30 straight months; strong occupancy and affordability |
| 2 | Raleigh | North Carolina | Population inflows, low-tax climate, expanding tech and manufacturing jobs |
| 3 | Salt Lake City | Utah | Absorption well above its historical average; young renter base |
| 4 | Nashville | Tennessee | Highest absorption score in the index; durable in-migration |
| 5 | Milwaukee | Wisconsin | Tight supply and steady Midwest renter demand |
| 6 | Charlotte | North Carolina | Population growth and job expansion; business-friendly taxes |
| 7 | Chicago | Illinois | Deep capital markets, strong search activity, resilient rents |
| 8 | Richmond | Virginia | Stable fundamentals and active capital markets |
| 9 | Phoenix | Arizona | Above-average absorption as its supply wave clears |
| 10 | Columbus | Ohio | Young renter base and steady occupancy |
Also ranked in the 2026 top 20: Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Hartford, and Orlando & Miami. A separate lens, the PwC/ULI Emerging Trends 2026 survey, leads with Dallas/Fort Worth, Jersey City, Miami, Brooklyn, and Houston.
Rankings: Arbor Realty Trust / Chandan Economics, Spring 2026; PwC/ULI Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2026.
Multifamily Loans by Metro Market
Local financing pages for the largest apartment markets:
New York · Los Angeles · Chicago · Dallas · Houston · Atlanta · Miami · Washington, DC · Boston · San Francisco · San Jose · San Diego · Jersey City · Phoenix
For properties under $6 million, see our apartment loan programs. For 2026 investment rankings, see top markets.
Refinancing in 2026: $875 Billion Comes Due
An estimated $875 billion of commercial and multifamily mortgage debt matures in 2026, about 17% of the $5.0 trillion outstanding, per the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2025 Survey of Loan Maturity Volumes (reported February 2026). That is down 9% from the $957 billion due in 2025, a sign the market is moving past the peak of the maturity wall.
Multifamily is the calmest corner of that wall: only about 13% of multifamily balances mature in 2026, well below hotels (30%) and industrial (23%). Owners refinancing maturing bridge, bank, or agency debt this year are re-pricing into a market with expanding agency capacity and stabilizing rates. Select Commercial arranges refinances, including cash-out, across Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA/HUD, CMBS, bank, and life-company programs, with written pre-approvals within 48 hours.
Source: Mortgage Bankers Association, 2025 Commercial Real Estate Survey of Loan Maturity Volumes.
Multifamily Loans by State
We arrange multifamily loans and multifamily financing nationwide. Explore multifamily lenders and programs state by state:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Apartment or Multifamily: What's the Difference?
They finance the same asset: buildings with five or more residential units. In everyday use, an apartment loan usually means financing under $6 million and a multifamily loan means larger balances over $6 million. The distinction matters because larger loans qualify for streamlined institutional underwriting and the tightest agency pricing.
Select Commercial arranges both, so whichever side of the line your property falls on, we can match it to the best program and terms. For smaller properties, see our apartment loans.
Why Finance Multifamily With Select Commercial
With more than 30 years of experience and relationships across agency, bank, CMBS, life company and private lenders, we present multifamily financing requests that get a lender’s prompt attention, and we identify the best execution for each property. There are no upfront application or processing fees, and we issue written pre-approvals within 48 hours at no cost or obligation.
What Our Clients Say
“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“I found selectcommercial.com and saw they specialized in apartment building loans. In the end, they were by far the best company I have used. Next time I know who to call first.”
Jerry T. · Long Island, NY“As a real estate attorney, I trust that Select Commercial will deliver apartment building loans and commercial mortgages in a timely manner. The rates and terms offered are excellent. I heartily recommend them.”
David S. · New York CityGet Your Multifamily Rate Quote
No cost, no obligation. Written answers within 48 hours on multifamily loans over $6,000,000.
- No application or processing fees
- Written answers within 48 hours
- For 5+ unit and commercial properties, $1.5M and up