2022 U.S. CMBS Outlook: Sustained Rebound Will Continue to Buoy the CMBS Market

This commentary highlights our view that the U.S. CMBS market had a strong year in 2021, but our outlooks for U.S. property markets and sectors diverge in ways significantly different than in the last recovery. These distinctions have translated into very differentiated recent performances—and outlooks—among U.S. property markets and sectors. The U.S. CMBS market had a strong year in 2021 despite the low volume of new conduit transactions, which was more than offset by a substantial number of single-asset/single-borrower and commercial real estate collateralized loan obligations transactions. The conduit market pulled back significantly in 2021 as the combination of market uncertainty and challenging credit metrics for non-multifamily assets made lending in the sector less attractive for issuers. Broadly, higher quality assets across all sectors will continue to attract competitive terms while lower quality properties may continue to face headwinds.