REAL ESTATE NEWS

Commercial real estate finance firm Lument has debuted a multifamily investment sales platform.

The initiative will be headed by John Sebree, who has joined the company as a senior managing director and head of real estate sales. 

As to why the company has decided to launch the platform now, he highlighted to GlobeSt the growth it has experienced over the past few years, which includes the purchase of Lancaster Pollard and Red Capital.

Separately, Sebree said Lument's exclusive debt platform is active with Fannie Mac, Fannie Mae, and HUD lending.

"Now that the debt platform is established, [it] still has enormous room to grow," he said.

"I think that is why the timing makes sense to add to [the] suite of services and start looking at expanding and building out an investment sales platform." 

The investment sales platform makes so much sense for multifamily because agency debt makes up a substantial percentage of the loans that are placed on, larger private capital and up into institutional properties."

For the most part, Lument sees a positive view in the multifamily industry. During the first half of this year, advertised rents in the country increased by 1.5 percent."You're continuing to have positive rent growth, and the fundamentals continue to remain very strong," Sebree said.

However, he did note that there are about 12-15 markets in the country that are volatile. For example, during the first half, multiple areas in the Sun Belt experienced a drop in rent growth including Austin and Atlanta.

"As our economy has remained very resilient, those units will get absorbed and those even in those overbuilt markets, I sincerely believe by the end of 2025 and into 2026 they're going to be very stable," Sebree stated.

Overall, the new senior managing director of Lument brings more than two and a half decades of experience as a multifamily specialist. In 17 of those years, Sebree was involved with Marcus & Millichap, where he served as national director of the real estate sales firm's institutional property advisors division.

"Clearly, Lument is on the move, and it understands that investment sales is the key to unlocking substantial additional value for its debt business," the new leader of multifamily investment sales platform said in a statement.

"I see this as a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to build an investment sales platform from the ground up."

Source: GlobeSt/ALM