Investment Mortgages Skyrocket In First Quarter

Mortgage bankers originated $31.3 billion in commercial and multifamily loans in this year's first quarter, an increase of 39.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Multifamily lending powered demand, soaring 62 percent from the same three months of 2004. Office property loans, meanwhile, increased 29 percent as hotel and motel loans skyrocketed 96 percent. Analysts now forecast that apartment demand will climb as the single-family home market decelerates, according to a report by Investor's Business Daily.