Akerman Distressed Property Practice Co-Chair Carol L. Schoffel Faber was quoted in Commercial Observer, a leading commercial real estate news publication, in the article "Five- and 10-Year CMBS Loans: Which Vintage Might Crash the Office Market?" sharing her expert assessment of whether the surge in distressed office sector loans poses a systemic risk to the broader commercial real estate market.
The article examines the growing wave of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) office loan maturities in 2026, with delinquency rates hitting an all-time high of 12.34 percent in January and more than $100 billion in fixed and floating-rate CMBS loans expected to come due this year. Experts across the industry are debating whether the era of "extend and pretend," in which lenders granted repeated short-term extensions rather than force resolutions, has finally run its course. The piece explores whether the convergence of 10-year loans originated in 2016 and five-year loans originated in 2021, compounded by a significant volume of loans extended in 2024 that are now coming due, will trigger a market-wide reckoning or prove to be a contained problem.
Carol pointed to the significant volume of rescue equity and capital available in the market as a stabilizing force, expressing cautious optimism about the ultimate scope of the distress. "My sense is it's more limited, it won't infect the system," she said. "I don't think we'll see a system problem, a 2008 [financial crisis]."