The industry's own research.
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Cushman & Wakefield analyzes how massive AI infrastructure bond issuance by tech hyperscalers is competing for fixed-income capital with CRE debt markets, raising financing costs and lender selectivity across commercial real estate sectors.
Total outstanding commercial real estate debt reached $5.1 trillion through Q1 2026, with banks holding $1.91 trillion (37.4% of income-producing debt), followed by GSEs at $1.16 trillion (22.7%) and insurance companies at $808 billion (15.9%), while securitized debt comprised $771 billion (15.1%). Key findings included securitized balances rising 8.6% year-over-year, banks growing 4.1% year-over-year in the income-producing segment, and near-term maturities of $311 billion and $186 billion concentrated among banks and securitized lenders respectively through 2026, with approximately $1.7 trillion of debt maturing in 2031 and beyond.
Confirms ratings on two CMBS Re-REMIC transactions, reflecting stable performance of underlying Freddie Mac securitizations.
Will McIntosh and Shaun Moura, writing for the NAIOP Research Foundation, look at new capital markets and real estate data to analyze the current debt and equity landscape. The post US Capital Market and CRE Trends: H2 2025 appeared first on AFIRE .
Five-year conduit loans have become the dominant structure in CMBS issuance, rising from 3.1% of loan count in 2019 to 91.0% by 2026, though this shift reflects market preference for shorter duration rather than aggressive pricing. Spreads have remained disciplined post-2023, stabilizing in the high-200s basis points across property types, with multifamily pricing most tightly (263 basis points in 2026) and lodging most widely (319 basis points in 2026), indicating that lenders continue to differentiate sharply by collateral quality and sector risk despite the structural shift toward five-year terms.
The Chief Economist's Weekly Watch for June 22, 2026 covers three key developments affecting commercial real estate: May PCE inflation data released Thursday with implications for Treasury yields and refinancing assumptions; Federal Reserve communication shifts following Chair Kevin Warsh's first FOMC meeting, which shortened the statement and removed forward guidance while projections turned hawkish toward a possible rate hike; and the Federal Reserve's annual bank stress test results released Wednesday, which assume a severe global recession and commercial real estate stress while maintaining current capital requirements without resetting stress capital buffers.
Teodora Paligorova , and Toshihide Yorozu Outstanding mortgage debt in the commercial real estate (CRE) sector totaled $6 trillion at the end of 2024 including owner-occupied and nonowner-occupied real estate, multifamily mortgages, and loans backed by acquisition, development, and construction projects. Banks hold…
CRED iQ's overall CMBS distress rate rose to 11.86% in May 2026, up from 11.08% in April, driven by increases in both special servicing and delinquency rates. Office properties showed the highest distress at 17.11%, followed by mixed-use at 16.12%, while self-storage, industrial, and manufactured housing remained resilient with distress rates near or below 1.2%. The overall distress rate has more than doubled since mid-2022 when it was near 5%, indicating that resolution activity has not kept pace with new transfers into distress.
CRED iQ analyzed $26.1 billion in newly securitized CMBS loans from 2026 and found that balance-weighted average cap rates now align almost exactly with average mortgage coupons, creating zero positive leverage for typical borrowers, with the split driven primarily by property type: favored sectors (multifamily, industrial, self-storage, mixed-use, manufactured housing) finance at negative leverage ranging from −19 to −86 basis points, while distressed sectors (hospitality at +124 bps, office at +95 bps, retail at +20 bps) maintain positive leverage. Cap rates range from 5.41% (manufactured housing) to 8.02% (hospitality), with office and hotel underwriting marked as extremely conservative at 13.8% weighted debt yields and 55.4% LTV, while 56% of new-issue balance is structured as full-term interest-only to offset thin leverage spreads.
CRED iQ's May 2026 CMBS distress analysis found that the overall distress rate among the top 25 largest U.S. metropolitan areas increased to 12.7% from 12.2% in June 2025, with 17 of the 25 markets posting year-over-year increases led by Midwest and mid-major markets. Minneapolis (55.2%), Denver (43.0%), and Rochester (40.1%) posted the highest distress rates, while St. Louis experienced the largest single-year surge, climbing from 8.2% to 38.1%, reflecting accelerating loan impairment in markets with concentrated office exposure and maturing floating-rate debt from 2021–2022 vintages.
Walker & Dunlop led Fannie Mae multifamily lending in 2026 year-to-date through May 13 with $2.18 billion across 110 loans, followed by CBRE Multifamily Capital at $1.88 billion and PGIM Real Estate Agency Financing at $1.56 billion, with the top ten lenders controlling approximately 78% of the $16.5 billion in total Fannie Mae multifamily volume. Refinancing drove 62.8% of originations as borrowers addressed maturing debt, while gateway markets including New York–Newark–Jersey City ($1.6 billion), San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara ($0.75 billion), and Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim ($0.72 billion) attracted the most capital.
Bank multifamily loan delinquencies at U.S. banks reached 1.42% in Q4 2025, up 5.9 times from the cycle low of 0.24% in Q3 2022, while outstanding multifamily loan balances grew to a record $659.5 billion in Q4 2025. The deterioration is concentrated in 90+ day past-due loans at 1.04%, attributed to elevated debt service costs at refinancing, weaker rent growth in pandemic-era boom markets, and tighter underwriting standards.
U.S. bank construction and development loan balances fell to $456.3 billion in Q4 2025, down 5.7% year-over-year and marking the sixth consecutive quarter of contraction, according to CRED iQ analysis. The decline of $45 billion from the post-pandemic peak of $501.5 billion in Q4 2023 reflects elevated borrowing costs, tightened underwriting standards, and softening commercial real estate fundamentals. The past-due and nonaccrual rate on C&D loans stood at 1.34% in Q4 2025, elevated relative to recent lows but well below post-financial crisis stress levels.
CRED iQ's April 2026 analysis of the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas found an overall CMBS distress rate of 12.2%, with office property registering the highest distress at 17.0% followed by mixed-use at 14.6%, while industrial remained lowest at 1.9%. The report identified Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, and Denver-Aurora as the most distressed markets, while Sun Belt metros including Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta posted sub-10% distress rates; multifamily distress also emerged as a growing concern at 11.4% aggregate, particularly in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
CRED iQ's loan-level analysis of approximately 3,700 CMBS loans totaling $94.7 billion finds that debt yields have rebounded to a weighted-average of 10.3% across property types, with office leading at 15.75% and multifamily lowest at 8.87%. The analysis reveals that four of six property types (multifamily, retail, industrial, and self-storage) exhibit negative leverage, meaning cap rates fall below loan coupons, indicating that new acquisitions cannot generate day-one positive returns without future NOI growth or refinancing relief.
Commercial real estate loan spreads compressed between 12 and 18 basis points over the trailing twelve months through Q1 2026, with multifamily leading the tightening at 18 basis points and industrial lagging at 12 basis points, while office spreads remained an outlier at 220 basis points compared to 154 basis points for multifamily as of March 31, 2026. The tightening, driven by moderating Treasury volatility and renewed conduit issuance in Q1 2026, has created more constructive refinancing conditions for borrowers facing 2026 maturities, with 10-year life company quotes narrowing to approximately 170 basis points at 50–65 percent LTV and office continuing to price wider due to elevated distress and rollover risk concerns.
CRED iQ's February 2026 analysis ranks the top 100 U.S. Core-Based Statistical Areas by CMBS distress rate, defining distress as loans in special servicing, 30+ day delinquency, or REO status across Conduit and SBLL deal structures. Office property type leads all sectors at 21.2% average distress rate, while Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington ranks as the most distressed major metro at 54.3%, driven primarily by office (72.7%) and hotel (92.2%) loan deterioration, with gateway markets Chicago (22.7%), Denver (22.4%), and San Francisco (21.0%) also posting elevated distress rates tied to post-pandemic office absorption challenges.
Despite elevated Treasury yields, rates have traded within a relatively narrow range in recent months. In a typical cycle, that stability would support improving transaction activity. Instead, Trepp data show that CRE credit spreads have widened across major property types, pushing all in borrowing costs higher…
CMBS conduit refinance of two Florida apartment complexes; brokered by Meridian Capital Group.
Arbor/Chandan quarterly: rent growth outpacing inflation as operators prioritize retention; robust SFR/BTR construction and $7.8B 2024 CMBS issuance.
Arbor/Chandan quarterly report: rent growth resuming pre-pandemic patterns, robust SFR/BTR construction starts, and rising CMBS activity.
CBRE capital-markets piece outlining MH/RV investment approaches (REITs, direct ownership, mortgage-backed securities) with sector performance context.
MBA's quarterly Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Debt Outstanding report finds total debt rose $26.3 billion (0.5%) to $5.02 trillion in Q1 2026, with multifamily debt up $23.0 billion to $2.32 trillion.
MBA's complimentary Commercial Mortgage Delinquency Rates report analyzes delinquency trends across the five largest investor groups—banks/thrifts, CMBS, life companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mid-year review of multifamily lending: agency lending volumes rising, third-party capital remains accessible, and transaction activity concentrating in higher-quality assets amid disciplined underwriting.
MBA's 2025 Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance Annual Origination Volume Summation estimates total CRE borrowing and lending reached $706 billion in 2025, a 40% increase over 2024.
Nuveen Real Estate's tactical sector-by-sector view on US commercial real estate fundamentals, pricing and relative value within its Trends and Tactics series.
Five takeaways from the 2026 MBA CREF conference: CRE originations hit $633B in 2025 (+27%) with $805B projected for 2026, nearly $1T in 2025-2026 loan maturities, and intensifying agency lender competition.
MBA's annual CREF Forecast projects total commercial mortgage origination volume to rise 27% to $805.5 billion in 2026, with multifamily originations climbing to $399.2 billion.
Barings' U.S. CRE research notes recovery underpinned by solid household balance sheets, sharply lower construction activity, three-year-high transaction volumes in Q4 2025, and record CMBS issuance amid disciplined underwriting.
Newmark's U.S. capital markets report covering investment sales, debt maturities and pricing trends, including an estimated $582 billion of potentially troubled debt maturing in 2025-2026.
Field report from the MBA Commercial/Multifamily Finance Convention covering capital availability, lending competition, and credit-spread compression across CRE sectors. Notes spreads as tight as 2021 and shifting lender risk tolerance.
MBA's quarterly research series tracking the level of commercial and multifamily mortgage debt outstanding by capital source, with a downloadable latest report.
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At its June 2026 meeting, the Federal Reserve held the federal funds rate steady at 3.50% to 3.75% under new Chair Kevin Warsh, who signaled a shift away from forward guidance toward allowing markets to price information independently, while the Summary of Economic Projections revised near-term inflation upward to 3.6% and the funds rate path to 3.8% without changing longer-run benchmarks. For commercial real estate, the meeting implies a slower return to rate relief in the near term despite unchanged long-run policy destinations, while Warsh announced five task forces to review Fed communications, balance sheet management, data collection, productivity, and inflation frameworks by year-end.
Trepp analyzed 1,419 re-securitization pairs of 1970s-vintage multifamily properties across 1,299 unique properties from 2021 through May 2026, finding a median value increase of 63.08% ($9.0 million) with median NOI growth of 39.38% and 81 basis points of cap rate compression, though value gains have slowed significantly after 2022 with median increases declining from 76% in 2022 to 38% in 2026 and cap rate compression largely disappearing. The strongest valuations occurred in Sun Belt markets like Houston and Phoenix (101-103% increases) and when properties transitioned from conduit loans to CRE CLOs (313% median increase), but properties already in CLO structures showed minimal re-pricing gains, suggesting future value growth will depend more on operational improvements than market-wide multiple expansion.
In Q1 2026, the largest banks (those with assets above $100 billion) saw commercial real estate delinquency rates decline sharply from approximately 1.9% to 1.5%, reflecting resolution of concentrated distressed office loans, while regional and community banks in the $16 to $40 billion asset range experienced the largest increases in delinquency rates. The divergence between largest and smaller banks mirrors patterns seen during the Global Financial Crisis, though at significantly lower magnitudes, with current median delinquency rates outside the top tier remaining below 1% compared to peaks near 4% during the GFC.
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On March 19, 2026, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC jointly proposed Basel III capital rules that expand access to credit risk transfer (CRT) structures for U.S. banks, eliminating the prior requirement for case-by-case Federal Reserve approval and allowing standardized regulatory treatment instead. The document examines how synthetic risk transfer and credit-linked notes work for commercial real estate portfolios, illustrating with a stylized example how a regional bank holding a $500 million multifamily portfolio could reduce risk-weighted assets from $500 million to $78.1 million (16% of original) through a CRT, and identifies strongest CRT candidates as stabilized income-producing properties and smaller-balance owner-occupied commercial properties with strong fundamentals that diverge from their regulatory risk weights.
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The document discusses three key developments affecting commercial real estate finance for the week of June 15, 2026: the FOMC meeting on June 16–17 under new chair Kevin Warsh, movements in the Treasury yield curve reflecting short- and long-term rate expectations, and tightening of balance sheet lending spreads amid competitive loan markets. The analysis focuses on how Fed communication and rate signals will influence borrower and lender assumptions, the relative pressure on floating-rate versus fixed-rate refinancing structures, and whether recent spread tightening in loan markets will persist or diverge from wider spreads in lower-rated CMBS bonds.
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Detroit's office CMBS market totals approximately $2.0 billion across fewer than 200 properties, with office loans representing $741.83 million of upcoming maturities. Despite Detroit office assets showing weaker utilization metrics than national CMBS averages—including weighted-average occupancy in the high-70% range and over a quarter of securitized balances reporting vacancy above 25%—the market exhibits materially lower credit stress than national benchmarks, with fewer loans above 100% LTV, lower delinquency rates, and below-average watchlist exposure, a disconnect attributed to Detroit's small, less-impaired securitized base rather than superior operating fundamentals.
The Trepp Property Price Index (TPPI) for Q1 2026 shows commercial real estate pricing stabilizing broadly across the market, with the equal-weighted composite index rising 0.09% in the quarter to sit 4.45% above its June 2022 level, while the value-weighted index increased 0.07% but remained 7.53% below the 2022 peak. Sector-specific results revealed uneven recovery: industrial and office prices showed modest gains, retail remained relatively stable, multifamily weakened with a 0.77% quarterly decline, and lodging remained the worst performer at 12.50% below June 2022 levels, though the analysis notes that smaller and mid-sized assets are finding firmer footing while larger institutional properties continue to face financing constraints and incomplete price discovery.
The Trepp CMBS Special Servicing Rate decreased by 51 basis points in May 2026 to 10.86%, driven primarily by an office loan returning to the master servicer and denominator effects, with special servicing rates declining across most property types including office (down 91 basis points to 16.75%), lodging (down 121 basis points to 8.45%), and multifamily (down 57 basis points to 8.51%). New transfers to special servicing totaled approximately $2.9 billion across 59 loans in May.
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The document examines how the Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC's new model risk management guidance SR 26-02 (issued April 17, 2026) replaces the 15-year-old SR 11-7 framework, with key changes including a narrower model definition that excludes spreadsheet arithmetic and deterministic rule-based systems, explicit carve-outs for generative and agentic AI, and applicability primarily to institutions above $30 billion in assets. The guidance creates a governance gap for AI-driven commercial real estate workflows by placing statistical models within the MRM perimeter while excluding generative layers, extraction pipelines, and orchestration logic, meaning banks have regulatory latitude in deploying agentic AI for CRE underwriting but remain responsible for downstream risks that feed into pricing and credit estimates.
The document is a letter from the editor of Trepp and Commercial Real Estate Direct's 2026 mid-year magazine covering commercial real estate finance and CMBS markets, reporting that CMBS issuance reached nearly $52 billion through mid-May 2026 (up 16% year-over-year), CRE CLO issuance totaled $21.61 billion (up 60% year-over-year), and lenders have increased lending against multifamily properties and office buildings despite acknowledged risks including inflation and geopolitical concerns. The editor notes that while CMBS delinquencies have increased month-to-month, overall special servicing volumes remain stable and market conditions are stabilizing, though investors and lenders continue to move cautiously.
Trepp's research blog covers CMBS, CRE lending and banking, noting capital is flowing again into 2026 as rates ease and leasing fundamentals stabilize.
Trepp's monthly delinquency report tracks CMBS late-payment rates by property type, with office continuing to carry the highest delinquency among the major sectors.
Commercial and multifamily mortgage debt outstanding rose 1.5 percent, or 75.2 billion dollars, to 4.99 trillion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2025. Multifamily debt grew 57.3 billion dollars during the quarter and 142.9 billion dollars for the full year.
The monthly Capital Trends report tracks U.S. transaction volumes, pricing and capital flows across property types, supporting investors, lenders and other market participants.
Moody's commercial real estate hub tracks deal volume, lending and property-level performance, noting December CRE deal volume sank further with office a relative bright spot.
The 4Q 2025 index rose 2.1 percent to 125.4 from 122.8 in 3Q 2025, approaching the all-time survey high of 126.6 set in 4Q 2024 as financing demand expectations reached a survey record.
The outlook notes 2025 office originations were the highest since the Great Recession even as office delinquencies stayed elevated, creating a bifurcated environment. Morningstar DBRS maintains a stable view on hotel, retail and multifamily sectors despite asset- and market-specific stress.
Clarion Partners sizes the U.S. commercial real estate investable universe across property types and strategies. The report quantifies the opportunity set available to institutional investors.
CRED iQ reports the overall CMBS distress rate rose to 11.70 percent in December 2025, a third consecutive monthly increase, with a delinquency rate of 8.89 percent and a specially serviced rate of 11.15 percent.
KBRA reports the delinquency rate among KBRA-rated US private label CMBS decreased to 7.7 percent in December 2025 from 7.8 percent in November, while the distress rate ticked up to 10.6 percent.
Newmark reports U.S. capital markets momentum strengthened through year-end 2025 as improving liquidity and active debt markets sustained a rebound in transaction activity. Institutional investment rose 23 percent year-over-year, while 547 billion dollars in loans maturing between 2025 and 2027 remain potentially troubled, led by office and multifamily.
Trepp reports the CMBS delinquency rate rose 4 basis points to 7.30 percent in December 2025, with lodging up 44 basis points to 6.61 percent and office retreating 37 basis points to 11.31 percent.