It’s not often lately when delinquency on securitized commercial mortgages falls.
But that happened just last month.
The news came Thursday from Moody’s Investors Service.
According to the ratings agency, delinquency fell 2 basis points from February to 9.16 percent. The figure reflects commercial real estate loans that are included in commercial mortgage-backed securities conduit-fusion transactions issued since 1998.
However, Moody’ explained that the improvement was primarily the result of adding more loans to the mortgages it tracks. The new loans were all current and are expected to have a permanent impact on the default rate.
In March 2010, delinquency was 6.42 percent.
Last month, $2.7 billion in loans became newly delinquent, while $3.0 billion in previously defaulted loans were cured.
This left 4,097 loans for $56.5 billion still past due. The decline from 4,112 loans for $56.8 billion in February was the first time that the dollar volume of delinquent mortgages dropped since October 2007.
By metropolitan statistical area, San Jose’s 2.9 percent delinquency rate was the lowest. In contrast, Las Vegas’ 32.1 percent rate was the worst of any MSA.
A 12-basis-point monthly improvement was recorded for hotel CMBS. Still, hotel delinquency of 16.29 percent was the highest of any property type.
Behind hotels was industrial delinquency, which plummeted 34 BPS to 9.92 percent.
Retail CMBS delinquency was off 2 BPS to 7.27 percent, and office property delinquency fell 12 BPS to 6.89 percent.
