The Mortgage Bankers Association's rankings, or real estate finance league tables, covering the top commercial-multifamily mortgage originators of 2018.

It's designed to provide listings of dozens of different mortgage originators, their 2018 volumes and the different roles they play. The report presents origination volumes in more than 140 categories, including by role, investor group, property type, financing structure type and by the location of the originating office.

Fannie Mae has completed a multi-tranche credit insurance risk transfer transaction covering a pool of around $11.7 billion of existing multifamily loans in the company's portfolio.

The transaction, MCIRT 2019-01, is the fifth credit-risk transaction and designed to increase the role of private capital in the multifamily mortgage market and mitigate risk for taxpayers.

"Further innovation and reinsurer interest allowed us to bring to market our first three-tranche offering," said Jonathan Gross, vice president of multifamily for Fannie Mae. "This new transaction transferred $332 million of risk to reinsurers and insurers, making it the largest single transfer of risk for our multifamily credit insurance risk transfer program. Depending on market conditions, we plan to return later this year with additional multifamily credit insurance risk transfer transactions."

Fannie Mae's multifamily credit insurance risk transfer program shares risk with many reinsurer and insurer counterparties and supplements the Delegated Underwriting and Servicing program where originating lenders share around one-third of the credit risk on multifamily loans.

The covered loan pool for the transaction consists of 1,155 loans, secured by an equal number of multifamily properties acquired between July and October 2018. Each loan has an unpaid principal balance of $30 million or less.

Under the structure of the deal, Fannie Mae will retain risk on the first 75 basis points of losses on the reference pool. The C tranche will transfer risk to reinsurers covering losses between 75 basis points and 150 basis points. The B tranche will transfer risk to reinsurers covering losses between 150 basis points and 275 basis points. The A tranche will transfer risk to reinsurers covering losses between 275 basis points and 400 basis points. Once the pool has experienced 400 basis points of losses, the credit protection will lapse, and Fannie Mae will be responsible for additional losses.

Since 2016, in addition to the risk retained by its DUS lender partners, Fannie Mae has transferred a portion of the credit risk on multifamily mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of more than $51 billion.

Multifamily investment firm Blaze Partners has acquired The Gibson, a 250-unit luxury apartment community in Charlotte, N.C

This transaction marks a continuation of the Company's current strategy of acquiring Class A communities within dynamic locations throughout institutional growth markets in the Southeast.

"We are thrilled to expand our Charlotte presence and add The Gibson to our growing portfolio of institutional assets," said Chris Riley, co-founder and managing partner of Blaze Partners. "The Gibson, unique in its design, walkability, and historic legacy, helped spur the transformation of the neighborhood. We are excited to take a stake in the continued growth of the submarket and embrace a community that stands unmatched amongst its peer set."

The Gibson, developed in 2015 and built upon the site and legacy of a historic recording studio, offers residents a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom floor plans with designer-level finishes and an expansive amenity set

"The Gibson transaction marks over $215 million in net acquisition volume in the last nine months, the vast majority of which has been with a slant towards core-plus assets in markets and locations that we deem to have superior long-term fundamentals with transformative catalysts to further drive demand," said Eddy O'Brien, co-founder and managing partner of Blaze.  "We anticipate a continuation of this investment focus throughout the year as we look to prudently expand our footprint throughout the Southeast with a keen eye towards relative risk and return."