MBA report: Multi-family continues to lead commercial real estate recovery

Posted on April 10, 2012

There’s no doubt which commercial real estate sector is performing the best today: multi-family. And a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association does nothing to contradict this.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2011 Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance: Annual Origination Volume Summation (what a name!), multi-family loan origination volume topped all commercial sectors at $77.4 billion last year.

The good news, though, is that commercial real estate loan origination volumes in general rose significantly in 2011. The bankers association reported that combined commercial and multi-family mortgage origination volumes soared 55 percent in 2011, another sign that the commercial real estate industry is indeed in recovery mode.

In all, mortgage bankers reported $184.3 billion of closed commercial and multi-family loans in 2011.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA collectively were responsible for $57.6 billion of this total. Life insurance companies and pension funds came in second, reponsible for $49.3 billion worth of commercial loan originations in 2011. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA each hit record levels of commercial origination volumes last year, according to the report.

Office properties saw the second highest origination volumes, after multi-family, with $34.4 billion worth of originations.