Dive Brief:

• Freddie Mac announced Monday that Ian Ouwerkerk would be the permanent senior vice president of underwriting and credit. He has served in that role in an interim capacity since the first quarter of 2022.
• Ouwerkerk was formerly the vice president of multifamily underwriting and served as the senior director of underwriting for the Southeastern region before that.
• Though the government agencies, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saw their volume drop in 2021, they still financed 41% of all new apartment loans in 2021, according to data provided to Multifamily Dive by MSCI. However, the agencies lost market share compared to the five years before the pandemic, when they accounted for 54% of loans on average.

Dive Insight:

Before joining Freddie Mac in 2008, Ouwerkerk worked as a commercial real estate broker. He earned a Bachelor of business administration from Acadia University.

“He has been a vital part of our success this year while serving as the interim senior vice president of underwriting and credit and I look forward to seeing how he continues to develop and strengthen the team,” said Kevin Palmer, head of Multifamily at Freddie Mac in a press release.

Palmer stepped into his position in May. Ouwerkerk moves into his new role at a pivotal time in the industry. As rents have historic highs around the country, the agency’s mission to provide affordable housing is needed now more than ever. Historically, more than 90% of the eligible rental units the agency funds are affordable to families with low-to-moderate incomes earning up to 120% of area median income. 

However, the tumult in the capital market and the disappearance of some other lenders has sent some market-rate owners back to Freddie and Fannie Mae, as they search for loans.

“The debt funds are all private market, and they’re relooking at where their spreads are,” said Kyle Draeger, senior managing director of multifamily debt and structured finance at CBRE Capital Markets. “There is less certainty of execution with them in general than there is with the agencies. You do tend to see a little bit more of a flow back into the Fannie and Freddie pipelines when something like this happens.”

In previous cycles — such as during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic — apartment borrowers turned to the agencies when other lending sources dried up. 

“What we’ve seen historically is that as those conventional deals become more difficult when there’s a dislocation in the capital markets, there will be much more demand for the agency programs,” said Richard Ortiz, managing partner with New York City-based Hudson Realty Capital, a multifamily lender that offers bridge and agency loans.

Click here to sign up to receive multifamily and apartment news like this article in your inbox every weekday