East West Commercial Real Estate

The CMBS market is paralyzed and the CMBX says prices will fall 23 percent over the next three years. There are a lot of interest only commercial real estate mortgages in CMBS portfolios and many will begin amortizing this year. If a recession is upon us and those borrowers can’t meet their debt service requirements under the new amortization – it seems to me we have a repeat of what is happening in the subprime universe.