Late payments on loans backing U.S. commercial mortgage bonds declined in April for the eleventh straight month, according to Trepp.
The delinquency rate fell 10 basis points to 6.44% in April. However that decline was smaller than declines over the last few months, when the rate has fallen between 15 and almost 50 basis points.
Over the past 12 months, the delinquency rate has fallen by a cumulative 259 basis points and it is 390 basis points below the all-time high, reached in 2012.
The primary reason that the delinquency rate has been falling is that the properties backing distressed loans are being sold and the loans are resolved, or paid off. The relative slow-down this month is a result of the completion of the vast majority of the CWCapital distressed asset sales. In February and March, over $4.5 billion in loans were resolved. In April, by comparison, that amount was just $850 million.
Despite the drop in volume, resolved loans, as well as cured’ loans that become current when the borrowers catch up on payments, were able to push the delinquency rate down again.
There were $1.2 billion in new delinquencies in April, which brought the total number of delinquent loans to $34.1 billion. Current delinquencies are down from $34.6 billion in March. To date, about 2,500 loans are with the special servicer, with a combined loan balance of just over $41 billion.
With the exception of office loans, all major property types improved in April. Delinquencies on multifamily loans, the worst performing major property type, dropped 39 basis points, bringing the rate into the single-digits. Retail loans remain the best performing property type in April.
Prices of commercial mortgage bonds also performed well in secondary trading during the month.
“There was a fair amount of turbulence in the equity markets in April, but the CMBS market was a bastion of tranquility over the last 30 days,” Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp, said in a press release.
“Month-over-month, spreads were modestly tighter across the board and new issue pricing came in near its tightest levels of 2014 with CMBS 3.0 BBBs leading the pack,” he said.
