Commercial banks and life insurers increased their quarterly originations of commercial mortgages, with office and industrial loan production picking up. But a big drop in conduit and agency business as well as a decline in hotel and health-care fundings helped drag overall commercial activity lower.
Commercial real estate loan originations fell 12 percent from the second quarter in the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Q3 2009 Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations.
Volume sank by more than half from a year earlier.
Compared to the high reached in the second-quarter 2007 — commercial loan originations were down 85 percent.
The average loan size originated by commercial mortgage bankers was $9.9 million in the latest period, lower than the second quarter’s $11.8 million and the third-quarter 2008’s $10.8 million.
Conduit originations — which stood at less than 1 percent of their quarterly levels prior to last year — were off by half in the third quarter and down 90 percent from a year earlier.
Multifamily volume at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was off by nearly a quarter and down nearly a third from the same period last year.
But volume was up more than a quarter at commercial banks — though originations fell by more than half from the third-quarter 2008.
Life insurers also saw increased activity — 17 percent more than the second quarter. But business was still down 58 percent from a year ago.
Hotel financing was off by nearly a third from the second quarter and down 46 percent from the third quarter last year.
Third-quarter health care originations declined 18 percent from the prior period and were down 59 percent from last year.
Multifamily financing fell 17 percent for the quarter and 40 percent for the year, while retail activity was off 14 percent from the second quarter and tumbled 62 percent from the third-quarter 2008.
Sectors that shined included office originations, which jumped by nearly two thirds from three months earlier but were down 56 percent from 2008, and industrial, which expanded by nearly half from the second quarter but were down but declined 58 percent from a year ago.
