New York-based commercial real estate investor Limekiln is selling its 50% stake in multifamily lender MF1 to joint venture partner Berkshire Residential Investments, Bloomberg reported.

The transaction will make Boston-based investment firm Berkshire the sole owner of MF1 and brings the 8-year-old JV to a close. During that time, MF1 originated about $32B of apartment loans. MF1 has also been a leading issuer of collateralized loan obligations, according to a statement from Berkshire. 

The vast majority of MF1’s deals were floating-rate bridge loans, and several of those originations were to entities that later ran into financial trouble. 

MF1 was a favored lender for Tides Equities, a Los Angeles-based multifamily syndicator that was squeezed by rising interest rates on its many floating-rate loans in early 2023. At least $425M in MF1-issued loans in Tides’ portfolio landed on servicer watchlists after it failed to make interest payments, The Real Deal reported in August 2023. At that time, MF1 had almost $11B in loans outstanding, and almost half of the deals were watchlisted or delinquent, TRD reported. 

In the first quarter of 2025, MF1 executed $5.6B in CLO volume across six transactions, Commercial Observer reported. At that time, 69% of the loans on its books were on the special servicer watchlist, and it reported a 13.7% overall distress rate.  

Only 23.4% of MF1's loans were modified, and its portfolio as a whole should be closely watched for potential risks, CO said

Around that same time, MF1 made its foray into fixed-rate loans. Earlier this year, it closed its first fixed-rate CMBS transaction, a $734M deal, CoStar News reported.

“We anticipated this year a shape of the curve where people would want fixed rate, and that hasn’t been the case,” Limekiln founder Scott Waynebern told CO last year. “At some point, rates in the curve will move to where people want fixed rate, and we want to be prepared for that.”

Waynebern will retain his position as CEO while working to build a new real estate strategy outside multifamily credit, Berkshire said in the statement.

Last month, multifamily was flagged as a growing source of CMBS distress as its balance-weighted distress rate more than doubled in five months, from 6% in February to 13% in July, according to Cred iQ data reviewed by GlobeSt.