Alliant Credit Union Lends $18M on Self Storage Portfolio Buy
By Cathy Cunningham October 5, 2020 12:56 pm
reprints
Among other market trends accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic is the interest in self storage portfolios.
Pogoda Companies, led by Maurice Pogoda and Adam Pogoda, has acquired a six-property, climate-controlled self-storage portfolio located in Grand Rapids, Mich. and Detroit, Mich., Commercial Observer has learned.
Pogoda secured a $18 million loan from Alliant Credit Union for the purchase. Lev’s Shoy McKen negotiated the 10-year, partial-recourse debt.
“Self storage, like industrial has seen an amazing uptick in investment across the nation recently,” McKen told CO. “With multifamily lagging and office space and retail hotel experience facing contractions [during COVID], self storage properties continue to show strong demand, especially in metro areas like Detroit. Multifamily and self storage pretty much go hand-in-hand with each other in the sense that if you have to downgrade your home, you don’t want to have to get rid of your possessions. That’s really where self storage comes into play. We’ve seen a major uptick due to the transitioning between people’s financial situations since COVID hit.”
The transaction closed remotely late last month. At a time when other financing sources were hesitant to find acquisitions, a national credit union stepped up. “Alliant made a really attractive pitch to the sponsors, and made the deal really attractive and super efficient,” McKen said.
As the year starts to wind down, Lev has more self storage deals teed up in its pipeline.
“We have a few that we’re working on at the moment,” McKen said. “This is a strong asset class that we’re focused on and a good fit for a shop like ours — tech driven, and focused on efficiency for our clients.”
Yaakov Zar launched Lev — a commercial real estate finance brokerage powered by both human and artificial intelligence — in September 2019.
