Green Park Financial, J.S. Watkins Partner in Small Loan Purchase Program

By Erika Schnitzer, Associate EditorBethesda, Md.–Green Park Financial has announced a partnership with J.S. Watkins Partners in a multifamily small loan pool purchase program. The program will purchase pools of multifamily loans that cannot be sold to GSEs due to size restrictions.“We see it as an opportunity to help facilitate community banks—freeing up balance sheets by facilitating the sale to Fannie of loans on books that they might not otherwise be able to see, given the size of the deals individually,” says Ted Patch, chief production officer, Green Park Financial.The basic outline of the program is aimed at community bankers and others who have small loans—of about $1 million to $5 million—on their balance sheet portfolios, explains Todd Watkins, principal, J.S. Watkins Partners.“We will buy the portfolios that are smaller and sell to Fannie Mae,” notes Jon Siegel, principal, J.S. Watkins Partners. “We have worked with them to come up with the process to do this business for them where they don’t have the resources.” According to J.S. Watkins, research has shown that hundreds of banks have portfolios in excess of $20 million.Because Green Park Financial is not owned by a larger financial institution, J.S. Watkins believes it makes the relationship with banks easier because there is no competition, thus helping to keep customer relations.“Our interest is helping the banks,” Watkins tells MHN, adding that this part of the market has not yet been affected by the current economic pressures. It’s a new process for some of the lenders who were unable to get into Fannie Mae and a way to get liquidity our of multifamily assets, Siegel asserts. He believes that this program will make the process easy, streamlined and as efficient as possible.“Our ability to aggregate the loans and sell to Fannie, I think, should be very beneficial to community banks, as well as us,” says Patch. “In this economic environment, that’s pretty important, given all the trouble that a lot of lending institutions are having.”