Allison Bisbey

Navient and Nelnet avoided downgrades on $19.5 billion of bonds with the help of recent technological innovations; this helped restore investor confidence, allowing them to resume issuance.

The Trepp CMBS Delinquency Rate ended the year at 4.89%, a decrease of 29 basis points from the November level. That’s the largest monthly drop since January 2016.

With ideal macroeconomic fundamentals of economic growth and low interest rates still in place, S&P Global sees no reason for issuance to slow in 2018.

Some commercial buildings that are not required to obtain earthquake insurance may still be susceptible to significant structural damage that could put the borrowers at risk of default, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

By sponsoring their own deals these matchmaking platforms are providing liquidity to multiple loan investors. They can also ensure that bond offerings are regular and uniform.

Speculators who bet on declines in commercial mortgage bond indexes as a way to profit from the expected demise of regional shopping malls may still be waiting for a big payout, according to Trepp.

Commercial real estate collateralized loan obligations appeal to investors now because they issue short-term, floating-rate notes; several nonbanks are using them to finance bridge lending.

The trend of putting ever-smaller pieces of the same commercial mortgages into multiple transactions means investors can end up with more exposure to a single property than they realize.

This feature, which has already been incorporated into some newer transactions, gives the sponsor more flexibility to manage its overall portfolio; Moody's investors Service thinks it is credit neutral.

Electric vehicles are starting to show up in pools of collateral for auto leases, but it's harder to predict what they will be worth when they are repossessed or come off lease, says Moody's Investors Service.