Industry Standards

As MISMO’s liaison to the CMSA to support the adoption of IRP 6 as the new reporting standard for CMBS, I have an inside perspective on the prospects of this standard being adopted. The official comment period for IRP 6 ended on February 20 and the CMSA only received a handful of comments (around 5) with most being against adoption.

From what I understand, I had the only supportive comments, and the other comments were from a handful of master servicers and trustees who were very negative on adoption of IRP 6, presumably for reasons discussed elsewhere on this blog. With the majority of comments being negative, the CMSA is trying to build a case for adoption. I worry that if the positive voices are not registered, the special interests may stifle the transparency promised by IRP 6.

Keep reading »

I just returned from the MBA’s annual Commercial Real Estate Finance (CREF) conference in San Diego. While we were there, the government announced $100 billion from the new bailout plan would be used to provide leverage to investors in AAA CMBS. Most people at the conference were excited. Personally, while I welcome government leadership on a host of issues, I disagree with this strategy.

Do we need to use taxpayer money to provide debt to boost the bond yield for investors in AAA CMBS? The bonds are already trading at 15% pay rates — how much more juice do these guys need!?!

Keep reading »

Today John Courson of the MBA held a conference call with the residential and commercial leadership of MISMO to let us know that MERS, Mortgage Electronic Registry System, has taken over management of MISMO (See news release below).

Keep reading »

The much anticipated investor forum was a bit disappointing.

I agreed with almost everything they said, and I liked the fact that it was delivered with a bit of an angry edge. The problem was that the laundry list lasted the entire session, and they left no time for questions, discussion and comments.

So, the promised “Lively Debate” turned out to be a scolding and, frankly, the people who have been working on these problems were a bit put off. But, the list of needed improvements made sense — and it is exactly what I have been saying here.

Keep reading »

The Exposure Draft of IRP 6 (called “IRP X”) has been released.

It contains essentially the same content as IRP 5, but in XML. I applaud both the CMSA and the MBA for getting that done. It is a critical step not only in organizing the basic data, but also in starting the comment period that leads to getting the standard approved.

We will now turn to the battle of getting the rent rolls added to IRP X, but at least the clock is ticking, and it will be in XML.

Keep reading »