With banks and multifamily originators leading the way, commercial mortgage production for the entire country was up by more than a fifth last year.
Commercial mortgage companies originated 32,715 commercial real estate loans for $358.5 billion during all of 2013.
Activity jumped from 2012, when aggregate U.S. CRE loan production was $244.2 billion, according to previously reported data..
The origination data was summarized in the Annual Origination Volume Summation 2013. The report from the Mortgage Bankers Association costs $250.
MBA said that the 47 percent year-over-year increase reflected greater participation in its survey — though even with repeat reporters had an increase from 2012 of 22 percent.
“Improving property markets and a strong appetite among lenders led to a very active year in commercial real estate finance,” MBA Vice President of Commercial Real Estate Research Jamie Woodwell said in the report. “Multifamily rental properties drew the most financing, and banks and thrifts were the largest source of commercial real estate lending. Despite the fact there are fewer maturing loans in need of refinancing this year, originations should continue to be buoyed by higher property values, rising property incomes and still low interest rates.”
The biggest share of 2013 commercial mortgage production — $100 billion — went to commercial banks and savings institutions.
After that were loans originated for commercial mortgage-backed securities and conduits, which were responsible for $80 billion.
Another $60 billion in CRE loans were funded by life insurance companies and pension funds.
Fannie Mae was responsible for $25 billion of last year’s activity, while real estate investment trusts and investment funds accounted for $24 billion, and Freddie Mac generated $23 billion.
The rest was originated by credit companies and specialty finance companies, the Federal Housing Administration and Ginnie Mae, and “other.”
By property type, multifamily accounted for the largest share of CRE originations: $137 billion.
A distant second were loans for retail properties, which totaled $56 billion last year.
Lodging properties made up $31 billion of last year’s fundings, and another $12 billion was originated to finance health care properties.
Last year’s originations that were closed in the names of other lenders totaled $175 billion.
