REIT Wrecks brings us a nice rundown of the carnage in commercial mortgages that's unfolded after Henry Paulson's sudden about face on how he was going to use the TARP money. The article talks about how what's going on with the CMBX indices seems like an overreaction.
The default rate on commercial mortgages remains near its historical low, although it is increasing. Overall, the number of commercial mortgages packaged into securities that are 30 days or more past due rose to 0.64% in October from 0.39% at the end of last year. That is the highest delinquency rate in two years but still far from the kind of carnage that occurred during the commercial real-estate collapse of the early 1990s. Back then the cumulative default rate on loans made in 1986 reached 36%.The trading levels of CMBS bonds imply a cumulative loss rate of as much as 40% on top-rated bonds, which means that at least 70% of the underlying loan pool would have to go into default, [emphasis added] said Richard Parkus, head of CMBS research at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. But he, like other market observers, views that as an unlikely scenario. ...
The spreads between the CMBX, a credit market index that tracks the values of commercial real-estate bonds, widened to another record level Thursday. And CMBS bonds with triple-A ratings now yield more than 14 percentage points above yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, according to Trepp, a New York company that tracks the commercial real-estate-finance market. That compares with a 1.5 percentage point spread one year ago and an 8.3 percentage point spread just one week ago.