Thorofare Capital Originates $24.77M in Multifamily Bridge Loans

Boston Creek Apartments. Image courtesy of www.yellowbot.com.

Los Angeles—Along with its subsidiaries, Thorofare Capital Inc., a Los Angeles-based middle-market loan origination and servicing company, originated $54 million in short-term first mortgage debt out of its recently introduced Thorofare Asset Based Lending Fund IV LP. Referred to as Fund IV, it is a closed-end debt fund vehicle whose target deployment capitalization is $450 million.

“We believe that our track record, proprietary deal flow networks and reputation for being a professional and stable bridge lender will continue to lead to ‘first and last look’ deal origination opportunities,” Thorofare Capital executive vice president of origination Felix M. Gutnikov told MHN.

“Relationships are key for quality deal flow, and since we’ve been doing this under the Thorofare umbrella, we’ve harvested some terrific relationships with important industry players, including owners of the largest mortgage banking firms, boutique brokerages, opportunistic sponsors and other intermediaries that refer us ’off market’ financing deals,” he said.

Among the apartment financing originated out of Fund IV in the past several weeks is a $14 million fixed-rate bridge loan to refinance the 349-unit, class B Boston Creek Apartments near Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

Extensively renovated, the property needed interim financing to stabilize at market occupancy prior to its owner initiating a marketing campaign for the sale of the asset within the first year of the loan.

Another apartment financing was a $10.77 million fixed-rate bridge loan to refinance the 278-unit, class B Cypress Gardens Apartments in Winter Haven, Fla. Included in the financing was an additional $852,500 CapEx reserve to renovate the remaining 50 un-turned units and fully stabilize the property after a $3 million renovation. To enable the sponsor to sidestep an imminent maturity default, Thorofare closed this loan in 10 days from the time of application.

Since its founding with $30 million in lending capacity six years ago, Thorofare has originated—including managed accounts that invested alongside the fund—$600 million in fixed-rate bridge loans focused on transactions from $3 million to $30 million for the acquisition and recapitalization of opportunistic commercial real estate transactions through a series of privately offered funds.

The loans are secured by multifamily, retail, industrial, hospitality, office and certain specialty asset classes. Last year, Thorofare also originated more than $100 million in floating-rate debt for office, retail, hotel and multifamily properties across eight states through its strategic partnership with DoubleLine Capital, L.P.

“We’re growing and bringing in strong talent to continue growing our relationships and just taking it one deal at a time,” Gutnikov said. “We are cautiously optimistic about headwinds helping us get an edge over capital markets-driven lenders, since we’re approaching each deal from a portfolio-hold perspective. Right now ‘evolution’ sounds nice, but we just plan on sticking to the day-one strategy.”