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Centerline has also seen more significant deals, in terms of sheer numbers, involving agency financing. In the span of a month, the locally-based company closed its largest-ever single Fannie Mae loan, and its second-largest Freddie Mac paper. In the former, the firm provided an $80-million first mortgage to help refinance Citylights at Queens Landing, a 42-story, 522-unit cooperative building in Long Island City, NY. The other loan was for the Vanguard at the Shipyard, a 196-unit community in Hoboken, NJ. The borrower obtained $60 million through Freddie Mac.

Those deals had favorable terms, Centerline reports. In fact, it's well known that the agencies not only provide significant amounts of capital, they also offer some of the most competitive terms out there. The last deal, in Hoboken, for example, had an interest rate at well below 5%, and the borrower was able to lock in the rate under Freddie Mac's early rate lock program. So far this year Equity Residential has taken out a $500-million credit facility at a 5.48% rate and AvalonBay Communities signed off on a $265-million paper with an interest rate of just 4.78%.

The agencies are so significant that new lenders and intermediaries are joining the ranks of those approved to do these loans, and those that have worked with the agencies previously, are bolstering their business lines. In fact, Fannie Mae DUS lenders delivered more than half of the company's total $60 billion investment in multifamily in 2007.