Loans secured by U.S. commercial real estate have declined nearly $100 billion over the past year. Much of the reduction came from securitized mortgages, though a big chunk was lopped off of commercial bank holdings. But agency and government holdings have increased.
Commercial mortgage debt outstanding was $3.3830 trillion on Dec. 31, 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. CRE loans fell from a revised $3.4408 trillion three months earlier and a revised $3.4820 trillion 12 months earlier.
MBA reported the findings in its Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Debt Outstanding Fourth-Quarter 2009.
On a year-over-year basis, CRE loans backing asset-backed securities, collateralized-debt obligations and commercial mortgage-backed securities had the biggest impact on overall contraction, declining $44.3 billion to $0.6905 trillion.
Commercial bank holdings fell $37.4 billion from the end of 2008 to $1.5063 trillion, while life insurers trimmed their commercial mortgage holdings by $11.5 billion to $0.3074 trillion.
Savings institutions ended last year with $0.1838 trillion in commercial mortgages, down $9.5 billion.
Real estate investment trust reduced their commercial mortgage holdings by $9.5 billion to finish December at $0.0297 trillion.
But the government-controlled enterprises — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — increased their multifamily mortgage holdings by $10.1 billion to $0.1978 trillion. In addition, agency- and GSE-backed mortgage pools rose $9.9 billion to $0.1648 trillion, and commercial mortgages owned by the government rose $6.5 billion to end 2009 at $0.0824 trillion.
Just looking at multifamily loans, outstandings were $0.8975 trillion on Dec. 31, 2009, down from $0.9085 trillion at the end of September 2009 and lower than $0.9034 trillion at the end of 2008.
