This news release surfaced today – it seems that Capmark Financial has secured a loan from private sources in the sum of $1.5 billion. CapMark is an investment firm that specializes in CMBS (commercial mortgage backed securities). They currently have a portfolio of investments are beginning to come due in 3Q and 4Q 2009. This loan will stabilize their portfolio of investments for at least 10 months at worst, depending on terms and conditions set forth the the loan documents.
To me, this is a great sign that some of this commercial debt is attractive to large investment banks – and that they are willing to put some of their cash on the street and at risk for the next 12-18 months.
For those of us that aren’t heavily involved in the nuts of bolts of commercial finance, a substantial portion of the US and worldwide bond market consists of ‘commercial mortgage backed securities’, or CMBS. The CMBS market is quite volatile at this time, as so much of that debt will be coming due in the next 12-24 months. We have covered this issue in depth here on Real Estate Jokers – and will continue to do so. We do focus on trying to keep things positive, but on the other hand in order to be successful in any market condition, you need to be up to date on the facts.
There are many news reports about the status of the commercial real estate mortage market – we have even reported on them here on Real Estate Jokers – The Mortgage Crisis May Have a Second Act? – but what is uncertain is exactly how much debt is on the books, and how much is going to mature or come due as the five year notes expire? I read an interesting article on Zero Hedge a while back that estimated the total commercial debt at over $1 trillion: Read more of this article »
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