As mortgage bankers grew the volume of apartment loans originated last year, the amount of multifamily loans outstanding expanded.
Mortgage bankers originated 44,696 commercial real estate loans that were backed by multifamily properties for $172.515 billion last year.
That was more in loans to finance apartment buildings than in any other year on record, according to historical data.
The details were spelled out in the Annual Report on Multifamily Lending 2013 from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
MBA derived the data from surveys of major multifamily lenders and recently released Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.
Multifamily loan production improved from the previous year, when 41,106 mortgages were closed for $146.055 billion..
Last year’s multifamily loans were made by 2,898 lenders. But volume amounted to fewer than six loans at 62 percent of the lenders.
The biggest share of multifamily originations, $67.860 billion, came from banks and thrifts.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were responsible for another $47.565 billion, followed by $18.692 billion at life insurance companies, $12.830 billion that was insured by the Federal Housing Administration and $6.683 billion that was securitized in commercial mortgage-backed securities.
Among lenders, JPMorgan Chase & Co. originated 6,604 multifamily loans for $16.942 billion — the most of any lender.
Wells Fargo was No. 2 with 2,593 loans for $16.874 billion.
After than was 451 loans for $7.952 billion at PNC Real Estate, 357 loans for $7.796 billion at CBRE Capital Markets Inc. and 351 loans for $7.324 billion at KeyBank.
A separate report from MBA indicated that multifamily debt outstanding rose 1.4 percent from the first quarter of this year to $930 billion in the second quarter.