West Virginia Multifamily Loans

West Virginia Apartment Building Loans

Not every West Virginia apartment property is over $6 million, and we finance smaller buildings too. For 5+ unit West Virginia apartment properties from $1,500,000 to $6 million, see our West Virginia apartment loans page for Fannie Mae Small Loan, Freddie Mac SBL, bank and credit union options.

In West Virginia a Municipal Boundary Decides Your Tax Ceiling

West Virginia assigns every property to one of four classes with different constitutional levy ceilings, and for an apartment building the class turns on something that has nothing to do with the building: whether it sits inside a municipality.

The assessment base. Under W.Va. Code § 11-3-1, property is assessed annually at sixty percent of its true and actual value, as of a July 1 assessment date preceding the tax year. True and actual value means the price for which the property would sell if voluntarily offered for sale by the owner, excluding forced-sale prices, and for residential property the assessor must also consider potential rental income under normal local conditions.

The classes, under § 11-8-5. Class I covers intangible personal property and certain agricultural personal property. Class II is owner-occupied residential property used exclusively for residential purposes, plus farmland used by its owner or bona fide tenant. Class III is all real and personal property situated outside a municipality not taxed in Class I or II. Class IV is all property situated inside a municipality not taxed in Class I or II.

The ceilings, under § 11-8-6. The aggregate of taxes assessed in any one year by all levying bodies combined may not exceed fifty cents per $100 of assessed valuation on Class I, one dollar on Class II, one dollar fifty on Class III, and two dollars on Class IV. The statute frames these as the limits of the Tax Limitation Amendment.

An apartment building is not owner-occupied, so it cannot be Class II. It falls in Class III outside municipal limits and Class IV inside them, carrying a levy ceiling of one and a half times, or twice, the ceiling that applies to otherwise identical owner-occupied housing. And the Class III to Class IV split turns on a boundary line, not on the building, the tenants or the rents.

What that is worth. Take a $10,000,000 apartment property, assessed at sixty percent, so $6,000,000 of assessed value. At the Class IV ceiling of $2.00 per $100 that is $120,000 a year. At the Class III ceiling of $1.50 it is $90,000. The Class II ceiling, for comparison, would be $60,000.

The $30,000 annual difference between Class III and Class IV is not abstract. Capitalized at six percent it is roughly $500,000 of value. Run through a 1.25 times coverage test at a typical fixed-rate mortgage constant, it supports roughly $300,000 of additional loan proceeds. Two identical buildings a block apart, one inside city limits and one outside, support measurably different debt.

So a West Virginia multifamily credit file needs three things that most borrowers do not think to assemble.

The municipal boundary determination in writing, not an inference from the mailing address. Addresses frequently carry a city name for properties outside the corporate limits.

The actual current aggregate levy rate for that specific taxing jurisdiction and class. The figures above are statutory ceilings. Actual levies are typically well below them, so the ceilings are the right number for a stress case and the wrong number for a base case. Get the current rate from the county.

A check for pending annexation. Annexation moves a property from Class III to Class IV and raises the ceiling by a third mid-loan, with no borrower action and no lender consent right. That belongs in the stress case on any property near a municipal boundary. Because classification follows from the statutory definitions rather than from a published schedule, confirm with the county assessor how your specific parcel is classified before you fix a tax assumption.

Two further West Virginia items at this loan size.

The transfer tax is county-variable and uncapped, but it does not touch the mortgage. Under § 11-22-2 the state excise tax on the privilege of transferring real property is $1.10 for each $500 of value, or 0.22%. The county base share is 55 cents per $500, and a county may increase its portion to a maximum of $1.65 per $500, or 0.33%, by majority vote of the county commission with published notice. Add a flat $20 fee per transfer into the Affordable Housing Fund. At the maximum county rate the combined tax reaches 0.55% of value, which is $55,000 on a $10,000,000 purchase. The grantor pays, but if the grantee accepts the document without payment the grantee becomes liable, and on transfers from trustees and county clerk tax sales the grantee pays.

Because the tax falls on the transfer rather than on the loan, a West Virginia refinance carries no excise tax. That makes this an inexpensive state in which to put on or increase large apartment debt, as distinct from acquiring. Confirm the rate with the specific county, since the option makes it variable.

And be careful with the BUILD WV incentive, because it does not do what its name suggests. Under W.Va. Code § 5B-2L-10 the property value adjustment credit is computed as approved costs multiplied by sixty percent, multiplied by the statewide average Class III property tax rate for the year of completion, multiplied by ten, and applied at one tenth per year over ten consecutive years. But § 5B-2L-9 makes it a credit against the taxes imposed under the personal and corporate income tax chapters. It is not a property tax abatement. The property still pays its full Class III or Class IV bill.

That distinction is worth a paragraph because getting it wrong oversizes a loan. The credit does not reduce the property tax line in net operating income, so it cannot support proceeds on a coverage or debt yield test. It is an equity-side benefit, it is non-transferable with no carryback or carryforward and is forfeited if unused in the year, and whether a given sponsor can actually use it depends on its own West Virginia tax position. It is also conditioned on the project sitting inside a certified district whose ten-year certification can lapse, and on clearing an annual statewide cap on aggregate approved project costs. Treat it as a return enhancement in the equity model and keep it out of the debt sizing.

West Virginia Multifamily Loan Programs

As a broker, we compare every large-balance program to find your best fit:

Recent Multifamily Loan Closings

A sample of apartment and multifamily loans we have arranged for investors nationwide.

$7,000,000

Cobleskill & Potsdam, NY

Two properties, 152 units total
10-yr term · 5-yr fixed · 25-yr amort

Refinance & Acquisition

$2,199,000

Morgantown, WV

46-unit apartment property
10-yr fixed · 30-yr amort · non-recourse

Apartment Refinance

$17,281,000

Valparaiso, IN

224-unit apartment complex
10-yr fixed · 30-yr amort · non-recourse

Multifamily Refinance

$7,172,400

Wichita Falls, TX

88-unit apartment property
35-yr fixed · non-recourse

Multifamily Refinance

$6,827,000

West Chester, PA

64-unit garden apartments
7-yr fixed · 30-yr amort · non-recourse

Multifamily Refinance

$6,000,000

Enfield, CT

90-unit garden apartment complex
10-yr fixed · 30-yr amort · non-recourse

Multifamily Refinance

See more recent closings →

Other Property & Loan Types We Finance in West Virginia

As a full-service commercial mortgage broker, we arrange West Virginia financing across every major property and loan type:

We consider commercial loan requests of all sizes, beginning at $1,500,000.

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