Among the most notable are small loan products for apartments. Firms such as Chicago-based Aries Capital, through subsidiary Aries Multifamily; Alliant Capital in Anaheim, CA; and New York City-based Centerline Capital, through its agency lending group, have all launched small lending programs over the past year. The debt typically is up to $5 million, and is sometimes obtained through the agencies' small lending products.

Recently, Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. unveiled a new program that attempts to meet another need in the market: debt for unstabilized properties. Dubbed the Agency Gateway program, it caters to apartment owners who need to refinance or buy assets that currently don't qualify for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac financing. Those include well-located, completed or renovated properties that have not yet reached stabilized occupancy levels.

Ted Hopkins, a PMCC principal and portfolio manager of Agency Gateway, says the locally based company launched the program because they saw a need in the market and an opportunity to capitalize off the upside. "The improving economy and upward growth in employment are positives for multifamily properties," he states. "We feel it's time to get in there and help multifamily properties get stabilized."