Top 7 Takeaways from CREF

The Commercial Real Estate Finance conference, one of the industry’s biggest events, was recently hosted by the Mortgage Bankers Association in Orlando. Most of the major players were in attendance to discuss emerging trends and rub elbows with notable lenders and brokers from around the country. We got the word straight from the conference floor on the latest commercial real estate market developments. This year didn’t disappoint, with some drama coloring the lending landscape. Here are the seven most important takeaways from the event.

1) The CMBS market is currently awash in volatility. Industry wonks are predicting that many of the active CMBS lenders will drop out of the business by the end of 2016.

2) In contrast, there is generally a high level of liquidity among insurance company lenders. Most shops in this space are increasing their allocations for 2016.

3) Banks are also upping their activity this year, with a focus on construction loans.

4) Not be lost amongst the group, agency lenders are ramping up in 2016 as well.

5) Industry experts see healthy numbers in the tea leaves this year across the U.S. in both major and secondary markets.

6) There are a significant amount of CMBS loans maturing in the near future, and there appears to be plenty of liquidity to finance these maturing loans out.

7) There are feelings of uncertainty in the lending community about the impact of governmental regulations on the loan market.