In this Syndication School episode, Theo Hicks, will be going over the pros and cons of securing a supplemental loan. These episodes are to help you become a better syndicator so we hope you enjoy the help and let us know by sending us a message.
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Joe Fairless: There needed to be a resource on apartment syndication that not only talked about each aspect of the syndication process, but how to actually do each of the things, and go into it in detail… And we thought “Hey, why not make it free, too?” That’s why we launched Syndication School.
Theo Hicks will go through a particular aspect of apartment syndication on today’s episode, and get into the details of how to do that particular thing. Enjoy this episode, and for more on apartment syndication and how to do things, go to apartmentsyndication.com, or to learn more about the Apartment Syndication School, go to syndicationschool.com, so you can listen to all the previous episodes.
Theo Hicks: Hi Best Ever listeners, welcome to another episode of the Syndication School series, a free resource focused on the how-tos of apartment syndication. As always, I am your host, Theo Hicks. Each week we air two Syndication School episodes that focus on a specific aspect of the apartment syndication investment strategy, and for most of these episodes, we offer a free resource to you. These are free PDF how-to guides, free PowerPoint presentation templates or free Excel calculator templates, some free resource to help you along your apartment syndication journey. So all of the past free documents as well as past Syndication School series episodes can be found at syndicationschool.com.
In this episode, we are going to talk about the pros and cons of securing a supplemental loan. So on a previous Syndication School episode, I had gone over how to actually secure a supplemental loan, but I didn’t go into the pros and cons. I briefly mentioned how it’s different than a refinance, but I wanted to do another episode that went in depth into the pros and cons of securing a supplemental loan compared to, say, a refinance or a sale, because the supplemental loan falls into the category of when the passive investors in your deals receive a large chunk of capital back or a large chunk of money back. Obviously, one of those is the supplemental loan, another one is a refinance, another one is when you sale. So if passive investors receive all or a large portion of their equity back at sale, at a refinance and/or at securing of a supplemental loan. So in this episode, I wanted to just highlight what a supplemental loan is again, go over the pros and cons of the supplemental loan and then also briefly talk about why Joe and Ashcroft prefer to secure supplemental loans.
So first, what is a supplemental loan? It is a type of loan that is subordinate to the senior indebtedness. So it’s the fancy definition of a supplemental loan, but basically what it means is that the senior debt, which is the original debt used to acquire the apartment community, so the agency loan that was put in the property, that is the senior debt, and that must be paid first by the general partners.
The supplemental loan is a separate loan that is obtained, and then it is paid after the senior debt is paid. So year one, you pay your monthly debt service for the agency loan, and let’s say you secure a supplemental loan at the end of year one – you’ve got a new loan now. So the way that it works is you pay the same debt service you paid before first, and then the next portion of the cash flow goes towards paying the debt service on the new supplemental loan.
Now, a supplemental loan is only available if the original debt is a agency loan, so Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Those are the two that offer the supplemental loans. You’re not going to be able to get a supplemental loan on any other loan but those two. That doesn’t mean that you can’t take out equity in different ways, but the actual word supplemental loan only applies to agency loans, and it can be secured at 12 months after the origination of that original loan or the most recent supplemental loan.
You can’t get your first supplemental loan until after 12 months, and then you can’t get another supplemental loan if available for another 12 months after that, so 24 months after the first loan, and then supplemental loans are not the same as a refinance because a refinance is replacing the original debt with a new loan. So that agency loan is paid off entirely and then a new loan is put on the property for a refinance. Whereas for a supplemental loan, the original agency loan is still in place and an additional supplemental loan is also put in place. So there’s two loans, as opposed just one.
So let’s go over the pros. So there’s five benefits of getting a supplemental loan. The first is that it converts the equity created in the property to cash that can be distributed or used for further capital improvements. So the entire purpose of a supplemental loan or refinancing or selling is to access the equity that is created, and supplemental loans is one of the ways to do that. So you buy a property, you increase its value, and one of the ways to tap into that value without having to sell or get a brand new loan is to do a supplemental loan.
Another benefit of this supplemental loan is that it closes quicker and has less risk than a refinance. So now we’re going into why the supplemental loan might be a better option than refinancing. So first, supplemental loans require less due diligence and underwriting than the refinance. So for a typical supplemental loan, the lender is gonna order an appraisal, a physical needs assessment, which is a property condition assessment or inspection, as well as reviewing the previous 12 months of financials. Whereas with a refinance, the same is required, but there’s also additional full underwriting of the sponsor and more due diligence required. So basically the same due diligence you did when you initially acquired the property will be done again by the new lender, but since you’re getting a supplemental loan through the same lender, all that has been done. They just need to make sure that nothing has changed during the first 12 months. So obviously, it’s faster because you have to do less due diligence, and there’s also a little bit less risk, because you’re not necessarily guaranteed to get that refinance, whereas you’re more likely to get the supplemental loan again because you’re getting it through the same lender that you’ve got your first loan. So that’s number two.
Number three is that supplemental loans are also less expensive. So since they’re faster and they require less due diligence, they’re also going to be less expensive, with lower closing costs compared to the refinance. Number four, the increased LTV that comes from a supplemental loan helps make assumable debt more attractive to a buyer. So what does that mean? So securing a supplemental loan increases the loan to value on the property, and the loan to value being — an 80% loan to value means that the bank hold 80% of the property value as debt, and then you have 20% in equity. So normally, agency loans are more stringent on their LTV requirements, and are capped at around 70% at origination, which means that they will lend up to 70% of the purchase price, and then you, as the general partner needs to put down the remaining 30%. And then as you implement your value-add business plan, you increase the value of the property. And when you increase the value of the property and the loan amount stays the same, then the LTV actually is reduced. So let’s say you buy a property for a million dollars, you put down $300,000 and the bank puts down $700,000. Let’s say you double the price of the property to $2 million. So the value of that property is $2 million, but the debt is only $700,000. So the LTV was originally 70%. Now it’s cut in half to 35%, and it’s calculated by taking that $700,000 divided by that $2 million number.
So now you’ve got the 35% LTV. Now generally suppplemental loans allow for up to 75% LTV. So going back to our $2 million example, now that the property is worth $2 million, the bank is willing to lend up to $1.5 million. So since they originally loaned $700,000, they loan you $1.5 million. The difference between the two is $800,000. So you could technically secure a supplemental loan for $800,000 and have an LTV of 75% as opposed to the 70% LTV at purchase. This allows you to increase the leverage. So now you’ve got 75% leverage as opposed to 70% leverage, which allows you to pull out more equity, but it also allows a potential buyer to assume the senior and supplemental loan with less money down. So as opposed to having to put down 30%, they can put down 25%. So the higher the LTV, the less money a buyer who’s going to assume that debt has to put down to obviously buy you out of the deal.
So if you’ve got 40% equity in the deal and a 60% LTV, then they’re going to have give you 40% to buy the deal from you they assume the 60% loan. But if it’s 75%, then they need to put down 25% and buy you out and assume that 75% LTV loan. So overall, higher LTV makes an assumable debt more attractive to a buyer, and that’s accomplished by doing the supplemental loan, because it allows you to push up that LTV from 70% to 75%.
Then the fifth benefit is the ability to secure multiple supplemental loans. So I mentioned this a little bit earlier – so I get my first loan on May 13, 2020 from Fannie Mae, and I can get my first supplemental loan on May 14, 2021. So 12 months after the first loan. Now, Fannie Mae limits the supplemental loans to one, unless the loan is assumed, and then the person who assumed that loan gets another supplemental loan; so they can get their one supplemental loan as well. But for Freddie Mac, they allow unlimited supplemental loans as long as the most recent supplemental loan was secured 12 months or more before.
So I buy my property and I close and I get my debt on May 13, 2020 through Freddie Mac. I can get my first supplemental loan on May 14, 2021. I can get my second supplemental loan on May 14, 2022, or later, and I can keep repeating that process over and over again as long as obviously the LTV requirements are met. So those are the five benefits.
What about some cons of the supplemental loan? Obviously, it increases the debt service. So since you are taking out more debt, then the debt service, the monthly mortgage payments on the property increases. However, this is going to be the same case for refinance as well obviously. So it’s not just if you do supplemental loan, it goes up or if you do refinance, it doesn’t. Additionally, since these are amortizing loans versus interest only, monthly payments tend to be a little bit higher, even at lower interest rates. So there’s not gonna be an interest-only supplemental loan. You’re gonna have to pay principal and interest, so it’s gonna be a little bit higher compared to an interest-only refinance type of situation.
Another potential con is they’re only available through the agencies. So you can only get your supplemental loan if you’ve got Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac debt on your property. So only having two lenders available limits your ability to have lenders bid against each other to offer the best terms, but because both lenders are government-backed entities, rates are already generally going to be lower than private lenders. So it’s not that big of a deal, but the con here is that unless you have a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan, you’re not gonna be able to secure a supplemental loan.
Number three is there’s limited flexibility with exit strategies. So agency loans are ultimately sold to investors as bonds. So they’re securitized and then sold to investors as bonds. So because of this, it adds a hurdle to the exit of the property. So a loan assumption [unintelligible [00:15:42].16] that the terms of the existing loan are better than market at the time of sale, so this is not gonna be a problem. So if your loan has a lower interest rate than the market interest rate at the time of sale, then it should be fine. But if the market rates are lower at the time of sale, a defeasance fee is going to be required to sell the property free and clear, which is a type of prepayment penalty, and this fee is typically paid by the seller. So if you want more information on defeasance and yield maintenance and prepayment penalties, check out everything you need to know about prepayment penalties on Syndication School. What it’s saying is that, sure, your loan can be assumed by a buyer, but if you need to actually sell the property free and clear and get out of that loan, you’re most likely going to need to pay a prepayment penalty, especially if you secure a supplemental loan.
Then number four is that interest rates can be higher. So the spread on floating rate supplemental loans tends to be higher than the spread on the same type of loan on the senior debt, making the supplemental loan’s interest rate higher. For fixed rates, senior and supplemental loans, the rate fluctuates with the market at time of origination. So compared to refinancing, you’re probably gonna have a higher interest rate. So these are the four cons.
Now why does Ashcroft Capital secure supplemental loans? Well, because they’re great tools for deals that have long term agency financing on them, because it allows Ashcroft and Ashcroft’s investors to get rewarded for executing the business plan by adding value to the property. So as I mentioned, typically agency loans are more stringent on their loan to value requirements, compared to private bridge types of financing. Those are normally capped at around 70%. But as Ashcroft continues the business plan and the overall value of the property increases, that LTV shrinks below the original 70%. I’ve already given an example of that by saying if you buy a property for $1 million at a 70% LTV and increase the value to $2 million, that LTV is now 45%; and since you can get a supplemental loan at 75%, that creates an opportunity to obtain a large amount of money back for investors. So those are the pros and cons of supplemental loan. That is what a supplemental loan is, and that is why Ashcroft Capital prefers to secure supplemental loans.
That concludes this episode about the pros and cons of securing a supplemental loan. Until next week, make sure you check out some of the other Syndication School series about the how-to’s of apartment syndications. Make sure you check out some of the free documents we have available on there. All that is at syndicationschool.com. Thank you for listening and I will talk to you soon.
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