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VIENNA, VA-MetLife Real Estate Investments has been closing a number of transactions in the DC market with five-year terms, according to transaction team members Brian Casey and Susan Busick in the company's office here.
"We have been doing predominately five year loans in this office," Busick tells GlobeSt.com. "It is a reflection of what our borrowers are looking for, we simply haven't gotten as many 10-year requests." Busick attributes the requests to a quirk or phenomena specific to DC that she can't quite explain. "I know other offices are seeing requests for 10-year money."
The most recent example is the company's placement of a $60-million, fixed-rate mortgage on 1015 15 St., which traded for $92 million at the beginning of the month, slightly higher than the contract price of $90.8 million. BlackRock Realty Advisors Inc. acquired the 201,657-sf, class B office building in Downtown Washington, DC from TIAA-CREF. The building is 98% leased to 22 tenants, including several law firms. Busick, Casey and Steven Taylor in the same office led the transaction team.
The five year term was interest only and the LTV was roughly 65%, according to sources. One possible reason for the growing number of requests for five year terms from MetLife, Casey speculates, is its own marketing. "We have been doing our best to let the market know this year that MetLife had a particular emphasis on short term and floating rate deals," he tells GlobeSt.com. The reason, he says, is that these particular transactions fit with MetLife's own balance sheet needs to match its assets and liabilities. That said, Busick adds, the company is not disfavoring 10-year loans. "We like the DC market for all types of loans."
MetLife's DC office's production pipeline is on track to meet last year's numbers of $800 million to $900 million, Casey says.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
