In January, the delinquent unpaid balance for CMBS surged to $45.94 billion from $41.64 billion the month prior, according to Horsham, Pa.-based Realpoint LLC. It was the third straight month when the unpaid balance jumped by more than $3.7 billion.
Overall, the delinquent unpaid balance is up 326 percent from a year ago and is now more than 20 times the low point of $2.21 billion in March 2007. The distressed 90+-day, foreclosure and REO categories grew in aggregate for the 25th straight month—up by $7.42 billion from the previous month. The total unpaid balance for CMBS pools reviewed by Realpoint for the January remittance was $797.30 billion, up from $797.8 billion in December.
The delinquency ratio for January of 5.76 percent (up from the 5.22 percent reported for December) is more than four times the 1.28 percent reported in January 2009 and 20 times the Realpoint recorded low point of 0.28 percent in June 2007.
Realpoint increased its projection for the delinquent unpaid CMBS balance and now expects the amount to reach between $60 billion and $70 billion by mid 2010. The firm also projects the delinquency percentage to grow to between 6 percent and 7 percent through the first quarter of 2010 and potentially surpass 8 percent to 9 percent under more heavily stressed scenarios through mid-2010.
By property type, in January, retail loans topped multifamily loans as the greatest contributor to overall CMBS delinquency, at 1.50 percent of the CMBS universe and 26.0 percent of total delinquency. The retail default rate grew to 5.40 percent from 4.84 percent a month prior, up substantially from only 1.3 percent one year ago. Realpoint expects retail delinquencies to continue to increase throughout 2010.