The market for commercial real estate loans is coming again, but already some industry professionals are warning that risky practices that were common in the recent boom are returning. An increasing number of financial institutions are vying to make loans on commercial real estate now. But many buildings are still drowning under heavy debt loads, leaving few properties that can support new borrowing. This means that banks, insurance companies, hedge funds and others are competing fiercely to underwrite the few viable loans that are available. Because of the competition, some lenders have begun to compromise their underwriting standards, say ratings agencies and market professionals.

Commercial loans are big business. At the peak of the market, in 2007, commercial mortgage-backed securities, which are bonds backed by pools of commercial real estate loans, were a $243 billion market, according to the research company Trepp. The market then stalled and reached a nadir in 2009 with only $2.4 billion in issuance. The market began to thaw last year and 12 deals totaling $12.6 billion were completed. Most of the loans underwritten last year consisted of top properties in prime markets, where there was very little risk of default.

So far, there have been 16 deals for $16.9 billion, Trepp said. Some of these deals include properties in Oklahoma and Kansas, and even hard-hit markets like Florida and California.

At the same time, metrics used to judge possible defaults are indicating more risk. Increasingly, appraisers are taking into consideration higher future rents and occupancy rates, rather than using only current figures. Inflated appraisals were common during the market peak but disappeared after the crash. There are also more interest-only loans, where the borrower pays interest on the loan but does not pay down the principal.

Appraisers say their figures are not inflated, but rather reflect the improving market in some areas of the country. “It is important to point out that commercial real estate is a two-tier market: there are distressed properties and markets and premier properties and markets,” said, the 2010 president of the Appraisal Institute, an industry group that has more than 24,000 members. Appraisers are accounting for a rosier future in only those top-tier markets, he said. “If we didn’t do that, we would be remiss.”

A sharp increase in the number of commercial real estate lenders is mostly driving the surge in mortgage-backed securities. Large banks like Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have resurrected their commercial mortgage-backed securities, also known as C.M.B.S., lending again after the downturn, while new players have also entered the market, like Cantor Fitzgerald and the hedge fund giant Citadel.

Insurance companies and foreign investors are also lending as they look to rotate into hard assets and out of cash and other investments that are vulnerable to inflation, Mr. Conway said. In the search for hard assets, the commercial real estate market is attractive because it is widely perceived to have bottomed out.

There are only a relatively small number of properties that are not highly leveraged and in a position to borrow funds. According to Trepp, over one trillion dollars’ worth of commercial real estate loans due in the next five years are still underwater, meaning the market value of the properties is less than their debt.

With so few opportunities, lenders are facing multiple pressures. To create bonds, they must pool together several commercial loans, but with so few strong borrowers, “their only choice is to leave the primary markets and look to the secondary and even tertiary markets to fill up these loan pools,” said Lawrence J. Longua, a clinical associate professor at the Schack Institute of Real Estate at New York University.

By: Elizabeth Martinez, Editor
Mortgage Lending News, LLC
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