Why Growing Multifamily Operators Bring In an Interim or Fractional Controller

By Douglas Kohn, MBA, CPA

I read a Bisnow piece in mid-September, "Troubled Multifamily Loans Face A Refinancing Problem: Who Puts In New Equity?" (September 17, 2026), and one quote stuck with me. Art Rendak, president of Inland Mortgage Capital, said it is hard to bring a refinancing request to a credit committee when the borrower is "at a 0.9 [debt service coverage ratio]." Investment committees want to know why the borrower is in trouble and what they will do differently. The article also notes that, per the Mortgage Bankers Association, 17 percent of outstanding commercial mortgages are scheduled to mature this year, including 13 percent of mortgages backed by multifamily properties, and that lenders are asking borrowers for fresh equity.

Trepp's September numbers, covered by Yield PRO on October 4, point the same direction: the multifamily CMBS delinquency rate rose 35 basis points to 8.04 percent, higher than the overall CMBS rate for the first time since the Covid shutdowns.

Reading that, I kept thinking about the finance team on the other side of the table. When a lender is deciding whether to modify, extend, or refinance, the story gets told through your reporting: NOI, DSCR, rent rolls, variance explanations. Most multifamily operators I talk to do not decide to bring in a fractional controller on a calm Tuesday. They decide it on the fourth business day of the month, when the close is not done, the lender package is due, and the person who always knew where everything lived is gone.

That pattern shows up in the data. The Controllers Council's July 2026 write-up of the Corporate Finance & Accounting Talent Study 2026 reports that controllers and assistant controllers are the hardest finance roles to recruit, cited by 44 percent of respondents, and that controllers have held the top spot for four consecutive years. Real estate narrows the pool further. A Bullpen RE hiring guide from May 2026 says Yardi is essentially mandatory for multifamily property accounting, and that residential-to-commercial moves are rare. A general corporate controller is not a quick substitute.

Backfilling a vacancy

An Executive Property Staffing article puts the problem plainly: a vacant senior property accountant or accounting manager position creates immediate pressure because month-end reporting does not stop while recruiting takes place. An interim controller covers that gap. The first job is not heroics. It is documenting what the departed person carried in their head, a risk that Atlas Global Advisors describes in real estate accounting: unusual chart of accounts setups, owner-specific reporting preferences, reconciliations that rely on workarounds.

Scaling a portfolio

Each acquisition adds entities, bank accounts, reconciliations, budgets, and reporting packages. The same Executive Property Staffing piece lists portfolio acquisitions, new third-party management contracts, and development lease-up as common triggers for added accounting capacity. A fractional controller can build the repeatable onboarding for a new property (chart of accounts mapping, opening balance tie-out to the closing statement, reserve and escrow accounts set up separately) before the third acquisition in a year turns it into a scramble.

What the controller actually fixes: close and property-level reporting

Here is where the accounting gets concrete. In the first 60 to 90 days, I would expect an interim controller to deliver:

A close calendar with owners and dates, so every property's balance sheet reconciliations (cash, escrows, security deposits, prepaid insurance, accrued real estate taxes) are signed off before the owner package goes out.

A standard property-level P&L mapped to one chart of accounts, with consistent treatment of concessions, bad debt, and loss-to-lease so the NOI you report to one lender matches what you report to another.

A capital versus repair policy with a written capitalization threshold, so renovation spend is not bouncing between operating expense and fixed assets from month to month.

A budget-to-actual variance memo for each property with a short, written reason behind every large variance.

Lenders and audit readiness

That is why the lender section matters more right now. If you borrow from agency lenders, the reporting is specific. Fannie Mae's Multifamily Guide requires servicers to collect quarterly and annual Financial Analysis of Operations (Form 4254) for each property, and to verify that operating statements reflect the physical occupancy on the most recent quarter-end rent roll. Actual expenses must be normalized for seasonality and for certain items, including real estate taxes, property casualty insurance, replacement reserves, and property management fees. The Guide also tells servicers to give borrowers enough time to deliver certified financial reports within 45 days after each fiscal quarter and 120 days after fiscal year-end. Annual operating data is due June 1 for a December year-end, or within 150 days of a different fiscal year-end.

The Guide also asks for comments when income, expenses, capital expenditures, or debt service coverage move 20 percent or more from the prior-year period. That is an accounting job: a variance schedule, tied to the general ledger, with a root cause for each line. It also means a DSCR you can defend. Before a lender sees it, someone should be able to rebuild NOI from the general ledger (rents collected, less concessions and bad debt, plus other income, less normalized operating expenses and reserves) and reconcile debt service to the lender's statements, including any interest rate cap costs and escrow activity. A lender sitting at a 0.9 does not need a surprise in the numbers. If your books can produce it without a weekend of rework, you are audit-ready in the way that matters to lenders. If they cannot, a controller who builds that schedule is doing more than catching up.

The cost question

I would be careful with any single number here, because published fractional rates vary widely and most come from vendors. As one data point, Go Fractional's rate benchmark, updated October 4, 2026, shows fractional controller retainers of about $4,400 to $8,300 a month at a typical 13 hours a week. It compares roughly $75,600 a year to a loaded full-time estimate of about $238,000, built from the Bureau of Labor Statistics median salary for financial managers plus estimated payroll taxes and benefits. That full-time figure excludes recruiting fees, and the fractional hours are a cross-role average, not a multifamily-specific figure. Pegacorn Group, another vendor, says the crossover to full-time usually comes when the work needs more than 25 to 30 hours a week.

So the better question is how many controller-level hours you need. If a portfolio has a stable team and needs review, lender reporting, and process design, part-time leadership may fit. If you have a large team to manage daily, a full-time hire probably wins.

A practical way to start

Ask what an engagement must deliver in its first quarter, in writing: the close calendar, the lender reporting schedule, the reconciliation standard, and documentation your next hire can follow.

At Ultramar, my focus is fractional CFO and controller support for real estate and construction companies. SoFla Prime Consulting does the same kind of work, including fractional CFO, controller, and accounting support, for South Florida businesses and nonprofits. Whoever you work with, the standard is the same: when the person leaves, the books should not.

Sources

Bisnow, Ryan Wangman, "Troubled Multifamily Loans Face A Refinancing Problem: Who Puts In New Equity?", September 17, 2026: https://www.bisnow.com/news/chicago/capital-markets/troubled-multifamily-loans-refinancing-problems

Yield PRO, Michael Rudy, "Multifamily CMBS delinquency rate leads overall rate higher in September" (reporting Trepp data), October 4, 2026: https://yieldpro.com/2026/10/multifamily-cmbs-delinquency-rate-leads-overall-rate-higher-in-september/

Controllers Council, "Controllers Remain the Hardest Finance Role to Fill," July 17, 2026: https://controllerscouncil.org/controllers-remain-the-hardest-finance-role-to-fill/

Bullpen RE, "Accounting & Finance Compensation & Hiring Guide," May 2026: https://bullpenre.com/reports/accounting-and-finance-compensation-and-hiring-guide-may-2026

Executive Property Staffing, "Multifamily Property Management Accountant Staffing Services": https://www.executivepropertystaffing.com/post/multifamily-property-management-accountant-staffing-services-finding-accountants-who-understand-the

Atlas Global Advisors, "What Really Leaves When Your Controller Walks Out the Door": https://atlasglobaladvisors.com/blog/what-really-leaves-when-your-controller-walks-out-the-door/

Fannie Mae Multifamily Guide, Financial Reports and Information: https://mfguide.fanniemae.com/node/18191

Fannie Mae Multifamily Guide, Financial Analysis of Operations (Form 4254): https://mfguide.fanniemae.com/fnmf-pdf/download/18136

Fannie Mae Multifamily Guide, Annual Financial Analysis of Operations: https://mfguide-acpt.fanniemae.com/fnmf-pdf/download/18156

Go Fractional, "Fractional Controller Cost & Rates" (updated October 4, 2026): https://www.gofractional.com/insights/rates/controller

Pegacorn Group, "Fractional controller services explained": https://www.pegacorngroup.com/insights/fractional-controller-services/