Freddie Mac buys $140 mln senior housing mortgages

NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - Freddie Mac said it bought a $140 million pool of mortgages from Capmark Finance Inc., enabling the Shelter Group to refinance seven Brightview senior housing properties and to recapitalize.

The funding, along with a majority investment from sponsor Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI), is for mortgages secured by five independent living and two assisted living facilities with 880 units in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia, Freddie Mac said on Thursday.

Freddie Mac is the second largest source of U.S home funding.

Since starting a network of multifamily loan originators and servicers in 1993, Freddie Mac has provided financing for about 55,000 multifamily properties for more than $194 billion.

The Brightview transaction used a 10-year plus one-year fixed-rate loan with seven years of partial interest only, Freddie Mac said in a press release.

"Freddie Mac stood by us despite the fact that the financial markets saw more turbulence from the inception of the transaction until its closing than the industry had experienced in a very long time, David Carliner, executive vice president for The Shelter Group, said in the release. "Terms offered by Freddie Mac were super competitive."

(Reporting by Lynn Adler, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama,)