Industry News

The first CMBS deals of 2012 have priced well, and interest rates being quoted by the conduit shops are now sub 5 percent for high quality CMBS loans. Investor demand has been strong enough to allow the originators to offer rates that start with a 4.

That makes CMBS more attractive vs. other loan products and supports positive momentum for a successful year. The market is on pace to reach $35 billion — and there is more and more talk of doing substantially better than that.

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The public comments on the SEC re-proposed rules for issuing asset backed securities including CMBS, known as Reg AB II, were due this week. The SEC received comments from 23 different companies and trade groups, including one from me.

See all responses : See my response

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The Mortgage Bankers Association has announced it will take back management of MISMO from MERS Corp effective December 1, 2011.

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The leadership at C-MISMO (which I am a part of) has been trying to decide the next steps to promote standards adoption. Toward that end, we hosted a “MISMO Summit” in May to seek support. At the meeting, it was clear a group of people wanted to put the entire effort into a hibernation mode.

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I attended the CREFC Annual Conference last week in New York, which was also attended by about 1,000 people representing all the different segments of the CMBS industry (Issuers, Investors, Servicers, and Professionals).

I would describe the mood as cautious due to recent spread widening, a perception that CMBS underwriting standards have already deteriorated and a widespread belief that the “reforms” implemented for CMBS 2.0 don’t amount to much.

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