LMF Commercial closes after $14 billion of lending

LMF Commercial, Lennar's $14 billion commercial mortgage subsidiary, has closed and begun layoffs in its New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Las Vegas offices on Oct. 21, Commercial Observer reported.

The closure ends a lending platform that wrote five- and 10-year fixed-rate mortgages against multifamily, retail, hotel, self-storage and office properties, with apartments the bulk of the book.

Average loan size was $11.3 million across $14 billion of transactions. The platform contributed mortgages to conduit commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) deals.

For commercial-mortgage borrowers, the closure removes one fixed-rate quote at an average $11.3 million loan size and leaves in-flight applications seeking another lender. For investors in conduit CMBS, the open number is how much LMF-originated collateral remains outstanding; Commercial Observer does not provide it.

The reason for the closure hasn't been established; one source pointed to the difficulty of originating conduit CMBS loans in a higher-for-longer rate environment, saying 'that was LMF's business.' Another source described the company as 'in the process of winding down' and said 'they're no longer making loans.'

LMF Commercial originated a $39 million loan on a Bronx housing portfolio owned by Barry Singer that was transferred to special servicing last year, according to the report. It was also part of the lending consortium, with Bank of America and UBS, behind Tishman Speyer and Silverstein Properties' $274 million refinancing of the Salmon Tower office building at 11 West 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, Commercial Observer reported, citing The Real Deal.