In a move designed to enhance liquidity in the marketplace, GMAC Commercial Mortgage (GMACCM) launched Realpoint last Wednesday. Realpoint is a Web-based platform that will serve as a tool for analysts, portfolio managers and traders to track and trade CMBS.
President of GMAC Commercial Mortgage, Charles Dunleavy Jr., said that Realpoint provides "the largest body of commercial mortgage information that is available in one site." He added that the product's success "will be creating a great deal of liquidity in the CMBS market."
The site, which features data on all outstanding CMBS deals, provides drill-down information on the underlying collateral and forecasts a transaction's loss potential through deal summary reports, watchlists and e-mail notifications given when critical events on portfolios are announced.
The system will also have benchmarking features, providing CMBS market analysis on a relative value basis. It will also contain data on supply and demand statistics by both geography and property type as well as market inventory, pricing, vacancy and absorption rates.
Subscribers will also benefit from direct access to GMACCM's 25 CMBS analysts, who do detailed analysis on all CMBS deals in the market.
Through GMACCM's partnership with Visible Markets, Realpoint subscribers can have access to an online auction-based trading platform starting in the late spring. The company has also teamed up with Torto Wheaton Research, Commercial Real Estate Direct and Intex to provide analytics and market data.
The site currently only features U.S. deals but GMACCM would likely roll out its Canadian platform by mid-year and is currently working on its European coverage. "The plan is in its maturity, it will be a global operation," Dunleavy said.
Although it may seem to be a conflict of interest, senior vice president James Titus said that GMACCM will be doing independent analysis of GMAC CMBS deals.
As for the sharing of deal information by competitors, though some have been reluctant, he said that "some are going to be cooperative." Dunleavy said that the sharing of information will help in the trading of these securities.
Though the site will feature new issuance information, coverage of these deals would likely begin from the prospectus stage as GMACCM will have securities laws to consider. The main thrust of the information will be on deals being traded in the secondary market.
