Freddie Mac has approved Sabal Capital as an Optigo conventional mortgage lender. The new designation will allow Sabal to expand into the middle multifamily market with an agency product for loans from $10 million to $25 million, where they see plenty of demand.

"A lot of people shy away from the $10 and $20 million deals because they are process intensive. We have a very strong relationship with Freddie already in the SBL program, which goes up to $7.5 million," Pat Jackson, founder and CEO of Sabal Capital Partners, tells GlobeSt.com. "The idea here is to fill the need for an agency product that fits larger than $7.5 million, and I see billions of dollars in opportunities. This is demand that we are already seeing from our clients. As a result, this is a natural fit for what our clients already need."

Sabal Capital obtained the designation in July, and the firm has since developed the infrastructure to build the platform. "We didn't announce it until now because we wanted to make sure that we had everything in place to be fully operational. It is one thing to have the approval and another to be really set up for it," says Jackson. "We put in all of the infrastructure and processes that will uniquely require us to be super successful for our customers around this program. That means that we have dedicated, fully trained underwriters in place. We have the full capabilities to respond to customer needs. "