CLEVELAND-Enterprise Community Investment Inc., based in Columbia, MD has merged its multifamily business with locally-based Bellwether Real Estate Capital LLC to create a new company. The new business will be based here and named Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital, though the CEO will remain in Maryland.
Lamar Seats, currently SVP of Enterprise’s Multifamily Mortgage Finance business, will serve as CEO of the new firm. Ned Huffman of Bellwether will serve as president and Debbie Rogan with Bellwether will serve as EVP. Enterprise’s multifamily servicing accounts will be transferred to the new Cleveland company.
Enterprise focuses 100% on low-to-moderate multifamily mortgage products. Bellwether has full service capability with commercial mortgages, making the partnership whole, Seats tells GlobeSt.com. “We’re very aggressive with multifamily, but we wanted to expand our footprint,” he says. “We wanted the right merger partner for our five-year plan. Their platform is 45% market-rate multifamily lending through Freddie and life firms, and 55% commercial.”
Why branch out from the fantastic run of today’s apartment market? Seats says real estate’s cycles will eventually come back to multifamily. “Over time, we need to be in full service,” he says. “You never know who long it’s going to last, or if proposed changes to Fannie and Freddie will alter the industry. You have to diversify.”
The combined team will total 90 employees and offer financing in multifamily, office, retail, industrial, hotel and healthcare. The merger should close in the next 60 to 90 days, Seats says. Over time, the company hopes to build annual production volume to more than $3 billion. Beekman Advisors Inc. advised Enterprise on the merger.
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