Your apartment loan comes due next year. Start here.

The monthly statement tells you the balance and the payment. The note tells you what happens next. Pull it and find four things.

1. The maturity date and what happens on it. Some loans balloon: the full balance is due. Some reset: the rate changes to an index plus a spread and the loan continues. Some do both, with a reset at year five and a balloon at year ten. Know which one you have.

2. Extension options. Many bridge and some bank loans have one or two six or twelve month extensions, usually for a fee (a quarter to a full point) and usually conditioned on the building hitting a coverage test at the time. Read the conditions. An extension you cannot qualify for is not an option.

3. The prepayment schedule. On a 5-4-3-2-1 step-down, the penalty in year five is 1% of the balance, and it is usually zero in the last 90 days before maturity. That window matters: paying off in month 57 costs 1% and paying off in month 59 may cost nothing. On a yield maintenance or defeasance loan, the math is different and the penalty can be large right up to the end.

4. The rate reset formula, if there is one. If the loan resets to an index plus a spread, do the arithmetic today. A loan written at 4.25% that resets to a 5 year Treasury plus 2.75% is not a 4.25% loan anymore. Knowing the reset payment tells you whether "just let it reset" is a real choice.

Takeout underwriting runs on a trailing twelve month statement and a current rent roll. Nine months out is when to make sure those documents say what you think they say.

• Rent roll. Every unit, lease dates, current rent, deposits. Units that are month to month should be marked. Vacant units should show market rent, not zero.
• Trailing twelve. From your property management software, by month, matching your bank deposits. If you run the building out of a personal account, this is the moment to stop.
• The tax bill. If you bought in the last two or three years, Georgia counties may have reassessed. Underwriting uses the bill the building carries now, not the seller's old bill.
• Capital improvements. A list with dates and amounts. A new roof in year three is worth something to an appraiser only if it is on paper.
• Your own returns. If a bank is a candidate, two years of entity returns and a personal financial statement.

Then run the building against today's rates. Not the rate you got in 2022. If the building supported a $3.6 million loan at 4.5% and today's rate is 6.75%, it does not support $3.6 million anymore at the same coverage. The refinance-or-hold calculator on this site does that arithmetic in a few minutes. Better to know in month nine than month two.

We run three lanes for a stabilized apartment building coming off a loan, and they take different amounts of time.

Bank-style full-doc. 5 year fixed, 20 to 25 year amortization, a personal guaranty, often a deposit relationship. Best pricing, most paperwork. 60 to 90 days from a complete package, and the appraisal alone is three to five weeks in most Georgia markets.

Agency small loan. Non-recourse, longer fixed terms, loan minimums that start around $750,000 at some lenders and $2 million at others. Slower to close, more third-party reports, and the best fit at moderate leverage on a clean building.

DSCR, sized on the property. 30 year fixed or hybrid, no tax returns, faster, up to 75% on a refinance. Higher rate than bank-style, step-down prepayment. The right answer when the returns are complicated, the timeline is short, or the loan is under the minimums above.

Six months is enough time for us to run one lane properly and fall back to a second if the first one stalls. Three months is enough to run one lane if nothing goes wrong. Ninety days is when owners take whatever is offered.

If your note has a step-down, look at the calendar. Closing in the last 90 days before maturity is often penalty-free. Closing a month before that window may cost 1% of the balance, which on $3 million is $30,000. Some owners lock the new loan and time the closing to the window. Others pay the 1% to remove the risk of a rate move. Both are reasonable. Deciding by accident is not.

Owners who start late end up extending, and extensions are not free even when the fee is small. The rate often steps up. An updated appraisal or a coverage test is common. Some extensions require a paydown to hit a new LTV. And every month on a bridge or a matured loan is a month at a rate that was never meant to be permanent.

The cheapest refinance is the one that closes on schedule with a full package. The playbook above is how that happens.