HomeStreet Bank parent company HomeStreet Inc. has completed the sale of $990 million in multi-family commercial real estate loans to Bank of America, the company announced Dec. 31.

The planned deal was announced four days before. BofA paid approximately 92% of the principal balance for the loans.

HomeStreet CEO and President Mark Mason said that most of the proceeds were used to pay down Federal Home Loan Bank borrowings as well as brokered deposits, which carry higher interest rates than core deposits.

The sale “is the first step in implementing a new strategic plan which we expect to result in a return to profitability for the Bank and on a consolidated basis early next year,” he said in a prepared statement.

HomeStreet reported a third-quarter loss of $7.28 million in October.

The slight price discount, Mason said, “reflects the current interest rate environment and that the loans being sold are primarily lower yielding loans with longer duration than the overall portfolio.”

This was BofA’s second large multi-family CRE loan portfolio purchase in 2024. The bank said it would buy 2,000 such loans from Washington Federal in May for $2.9 billion. The deal closed a month later, said by WaFd to be the largest non-Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. assisted CRE loan sale ever.

A BofA spokesperson declined to comment to Banking Dive.

Weeks before selling the loan portfolio to BofA, HomeStreet terminated its plans to merge with Denver-based FirstSun Capital Bancorp.

The proposed merger, which was announced last January and had undergone a handful of changes including the “pursuit of an alternative regulatory structure,” dissolved “in the best interests of their respective companies,” according to securities filings.

A HomeStreet spokesperson declined to comment beyond the press releases.