From the May issue: How do your clients stack up as potential mortgage candidates in this year’s increasingly tough underwriting environment? Do they have the right stuff — credit score, debt-to-income ratio, equity or down payment — to get through the minefield?

A new statistical analysis, based on a large sample of all mortgage applications approved and denied in recent months, offers valuable benchmarks for anyone thinking about financing a home purchase or refinancing an existing loan. The study taps into data from the loan processing software used for roughly one-fifth of all new mortgage applications nationwide, supplied by the technology firm Ellie Mae. [more]

From left: Jordan Ray, managing director of Mission Capital Advisors, and the stalled site at 393 Lefferts Avenue in Crown Heights

Stalled condominium projects in Brooklyn are becoming a thing of the past as lending loosens in the borough. According to Real Estate Weekly, construction lending is making a comeback in Brooklyn because rental and condo prices are rising at a faster rate than land costs.

Rents in Brooklyn grew at a higher pace than those in Manhattan, yet development costs are often $200 per square foot cheaper than the $320 a foot average in Manhattan. That makes smaller deals, under $50 million, easier to find and ultimately easier to finance. [more]

Lenders are increasingly turning to short sales for foreclosed properties, providing relief for both the distressed homeowner and the U.S. residential real estate market, MSNBC reported.

Short sales, where lenders agree to allow the owner to sell the home for less than its worth, rose by 26,000 this year even as foreclosures fell by 255,000, according to Hope Now, a resource for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Short sales benefit homeowners as they shorten the relief process, and allow them to begin rebuilding credit scores sooner. [more]

Bluerock CEO Ramin Kamfar and a rendering of 1355 First Avenue

The developer of a $170 million project to build luxury apartments on the Upper East Side can’t get a new loan because an earlier “white knight” lender now wants a piece of future profits even though its loan at the site has been paid off in full. Bluerock Real Estate’s stalled high-end development known as the Charles at 1355 First Avenue between 72nd and 73rd streets, is being held up because an unidentified lender wants to remain in the deal even though its $5.57 million second mortgage was paid off in full. Developer Bluerock, led by former restaurant impresario CEO Ramin Kamfar, is claiming in a lawsuit filed Oct. 11 in New York State Supreme Court that the lender, known only as Glacier 1355 First Avenue LP, won’t formally cancel the mortgage obligation despite the fact that the note has been paid off. [more]

One-time Salomon Brothers star bond trader and Renieri Partners founder Lewis Ranieri is revisiting subprime lending, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

As lawsuits against Wall Street firms continue to make their way through the courts, Ranieri believes the time is right for nontraditional lenders to enter the market. Bank lending standards have gone from one extreme to the other, he said, from too loose, to too tight. The limited availability of mortgages for the average borrower has provided that opportunity for his recently formed company, New York City-based lender Shellpoint Partners. [more]

Corigin Real Estate Group created a lending division today, focusing on short-term debt financing for properties in the New York area ranging from $1 million to $20 million, and has begun with three transactions totaling $8.5 million. While the borrowers requested that the real estate builder, owner and operator keep the exact location of the properties private, the company confirmed that two of them were in Lower Manhattan.
Corigin Real Estate Group, formerly Coalco New York, owns property in New York, New Jersey, and Florida and is the developer behind Midtown’s Element and Jersey City’s Canco Lofts Condominiums. TRD [more]

From the March issue: It isn’t a flood just yet. But observers say the flow of funds from the money spigot for New York real estate deals has intensified in recent months.

And this new stream of lending — which is enabling mostly refinancings, but some developments and acquisitions, too — is coming from many directions, according to bankers, brokers and developers.

Brand-name national banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America are finally taking risks on a range of projects again. And overseas lenders are even more active than their domestic counterparts.

Money is also coming from government agencies, local banks and insurance companies. In addition, as The Real Deal has reported, commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, which were shunned by investors through 2009, also appear to be helping projects cross the finish line. [more]

From the December issue: We’re programmed to believe that lying is bad; telling the truth is good. So two years ago, when the economy was in a tailspin and lenders started employing a strategy disparagingly dubbed “extend and pretend” for struggling commercial property loans, it’s no wonder they got a bad rap.

Critics painted the banks as liars who were doing little more than kicking the can down the road when they gave borrowers extra time to pay their due. By refusing to write down underwater mortgages, they said, banks were only delaying their inevitable losses and masking the true extent of the crisis.

But while the commercial real estate recovery still has a long way to go, it now appears that last year’s apocalyptic predictions were at least somewhat exaggerated. Whatever happened to the proverbial “other shoe” that was supposed to drop? [more]

From the March issue: On its Web site, the marketing pitch for the Fitzgerald, a condo in Harlem, has a decidedly pre-recession ring: “Where the living is grand and the financing is easy.” The mortgage terms sound that way, too: 5 percent down, with no worries about pesky approval requirements from a nitpicking bank. “The developer … will give you up to a 95 percent mortgage at favorable rates with reasonable conditions,” the Web site reads. But the reason buyers don’t have to concern themselves with a bank is very much related to the recession.

Home foreclosure rates are rising in luxury markets, according to data from Zillow.com, making waves in the mortgage lending community. As John Courson, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, told CNBC, the key issue in this crunch is whether credit availability among lenders will improve. “It’s clear that we are seeing proposals that are probably more dramatic … as we’ve seen since the 1930s when the banking system and the financial system in our country underwent massive changes,” Courson said. [more]