Isaac Kassirer refis part of Dawnay Day portfolio with $189M Freddie Mac loan

Sabal Capital Partners originated debt covering 880 rental units

Clockwise from top left: 233 East 111th Street, 1567 Lexington Avenue, 112-116 East 103rd Street, and 291 Pleasant Avenue with Isaac Kassirer (Credit: Google Maps and Emerald Equity Group)
Clockwise from top left: 233 East 111th Street, 1567 Lexington Avenue, 112-116 East 103rd Street, and 291 Pleasant Avenue with Isaac Kassirer (Credit: Google Maps and Emerald Equity Group)

Isaac Kassirer’s Emerald Equity Group refinanced a portion of its huge Dawnay Day multifamily portfolio in East Harlem with a $189 million loan from Freddie Mac – the largest deal yet in the agency’s small loan program.

California-based multifamily lender Sabal Capital Partners originated the loan covering 39 of the 47 Dawnay Day buildings, Sabal announced Wednesday.

The deal comprises 39 small-balance loans and covers 880 apartment units, which Sabal in a statement called “the largest portfolio loan balance” for Freddie Mac’s Small Balance Loan program. About 52 percent of the units will be renovated, Sabal said in a statement.

The rate on the new five-year, fixed-term loan was under 4 percent, and the loan-to-value ratio was around 60 percent, sources told The Real Deal.

Freddie Mac’s SBL program, launched in 2014, offers loans ranging in size from $1 million to $7.5 million for multifamily properties. The deal comes at a time when the agency has been ramping up its multifamily lending in NYC, beating out smaller community banks.

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And Kassirer’s been one of the program’s biggest borrowers.

In 2017, Emerald Equity Group refinanced another multifamily portfolio, located in the Bronx, with a $129 million Freddie Mac loan. At the time, that deal, which comprised 34 independent loans, was the largest in the SBL program. Platinum Capital Group’s Jack Miller helped to secure the debt for Kassirer in both deals.

Emerald Equity Group bought the 47-building Dawnay Day portfolio from Fairstead Capital and E&M Associates in 2016 for about $358 million, with a $300 million acquisition loan from Brookfield Asset Management.

Rich Bockmann contributed reporting.