Freddie Mac Launches New Finance Product for Multi-Housing Sector

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorMcLean, Va.–Freddie Mac has launched Series K-003 Structured Pass-Through Certificates (“K Certificates”), multifamily mortgage-backed securities that provide a new vehicle for the agency to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the multi-housing market in the U.S.The K Certificates are backed by approximately $1 billion in multifamily mortgage loans originated through Freddie Mac’s Capital Markets Execution (CME) program. They will be offered to the market by a network of dealers led by Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. The K Certificates, which are expected to settle in June 2009, are backed by 62 recently originated multifamily mortgages and are guaranteed by Freddie Mac. Traditionally, multifamily loans have been held solely in Freddie Mac’s mortgage-related investments portfolio. K Certificates provide Freddie Mac a new vehicle to securitize those loans and offer structured guaranteed securities to the market tailored to meet investors’ needs. “Freddie Mac is responding to difficult conditions in the multifamily housing financing market by finding innovative ways to link affordable rental housing to the capital markets” says Mike May, Freddie Mac senior vice president of Multifamily. “By offering multifamily loan securitization through our K Certificates, we’re providing critically needed support to the multifamily housing market during these difficult economic times.”David Brickman, vice president of Multifamily and CMBS Capital Markets for Freddie Mac, says that K Certificates provide the market a new investment option fueled by Freddie Mac’s growing pipeline of multifamily CME product. “K Certificates offer a simple and transparent structure for investors,” he says. “The securities offer investors credit protection in the form of both Freddie Mac’s guarantee and principal subordination, and they are structured to provide stable, reliable cash flows due to the large, diversified pool of call-protected multifamily mortgages underlying the certificates. And most important of all, our K Certificates provide another way for Freddie Mac to provide liquidity to the multifamily housing finance market.”