Selective capital still moving in multifamily

A newly built apartment project in Grand Rapids just got a 10-year Fannie Mae loan at 5.32%, with seven years of interest-only payments, even though apartment finance has been far pickier than it was in 2021 or 2022. The property is Meadowood Townhomes, a 96-unit community financed by Berkadia for local developer Wheeler Development Group, and the deal closed on March 6. (berkadia.com) That detail matters because this was not a generic bank loan for any apartment building. Berkadia said it was a Fannie Mae pre-stabilized loan, which is the kind of debt lenders use when a new property is built but still moving through lease-up rather than sitting at full occupancy for a long operating history. (berkadia.com) The borrower was not a distant institutional owner buying a trophy tower in Manhattan or Miami. It was Grand Rapids-based Wheeler Development Group, which also operates the asset through PURE Real Estate Management, so the capital went to a local sponsor with an in-house operating platform and a fresh suburban-style product. (citybiz.co) The project also fits the kind of apartment housing still finding lender support in the Midwest. Meadowood is townhome-style multifamily, which usually means lower-density buildings, more family-sized layouts, and a renter profile that overlaps with households priced out of buying a starter home. (rebusinessonline.com) Grand Rapids is not a market drowning in weak apartment demand. Colliers said West Michigan vacancy was 6.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025, while stabilized vacancy was lower at 5.3%, and Grand Rapids remained one of the region’s lifestyle-driven submarkets with solid renter appeal even as new supply hit the market. (colliers.com) Rents were still moving up there too. Colliers reported average asking rent in Grand Rapids reached $1,370 per unit in the third quarter of 2025, with annual rent growth of 3.8%, which was the market’s strongest pace since early 2023. (colliers.com) That is the backdrop for why a lender would say yes to one 96-unit deal while passing on others. A market can have more vacancy than it did two years ago and still support financing for a brand-new project if the sponsor is known, the submarket is holding up, and the loan structure gives the property time to fill units before heavy principal payments begin. (berkadia.com) (colliers.com) National forecasts point in the same direction. CBRE said the United States apartment vacancy rate was expected to end 2025 at 4.9% with rent growth of 2.6%, alongside the biggest wave of new multifamily deliveries since the 1970s, which means lenders are sorting harder between markets absorbing new units and markets still struggling with oversupply. (cbre.com) So this Grand Rapids loan is less a sign that apartment capital is wide open again than a sign that it still moves for specific combinations of place, product, and borrower. In 2026, the money is showing up more like a flashlight than a floodlight. (berkadia.com) (cbre.com)