Loans secured by multifamily assets are in high demand around the country, Besen Group’s Jonathan Horn tells us. Institutional investors that bought multifamily portfolios from community banks in ’07, ’08, and ’09 (many no closer to owning them than when they purchased the loans) are selling off individual loans to private investors. For NY and NJ, investors face a long legal process for loan-to-own acquisitions, and private investors are more patient. (We don't even have enough patience to write a grocery list.)

Meanwhile, US and overseas national banks are still unloading note portfolios. Besen (NJ offices above) is taking its note sale prowess to Europe, having been retained by European banks to sell notes totaling an unpaid principal balance of more than €300M to US-based banks and funds. That includes an assignment to sell a Belgian bank's performing-loan portfolio secured by assets in Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Jonathan says the bank is exiting markets beyond its country's borders, just as US banks returned to a local focus in '08 and '09. (We may all speak different languages, but our CRE cycles are the same.)