Search Results
Working Paper
Lease Expirations and CRE Property Performance
This study analyzes how lease expirations affect the performance of commercial real estate (CRE) properties and how these patterns changed during the COVID-19 crisis. Even before the pandemic, lease expirations were associated with a notable increase in the downside risk to a property’s occupancy or income, particularly in weaker property markets. These risks became more pronounced during the pandemic, driven mostly by office properties. During the pandemic, the adverse effect of lease expirations on office occupancy increased more than 50 percent overall, and it doubled for offices in ...
Working Paper
CRE Development Potential and the Selection of Opportunity Zones
Place-based policies are often caught between two potentially conflicting aims: (i) directing aid to needy communities and (ii) spurring investment. We study this tradeoff in the context of the Opportunity Zones (OZ) program. Leveraging unique phase-level microdata on commercial construction projects, we show that US state governors prioritized designating tracts where construction projects were already being planned. About two-thirds of the greater construction growth in OZs can be attributed to this selection. States prioritizing tracts with greater investment opportunities observed larger ...
Working Paper
Recourse as Shadow Equity: Evidence from Commercial Real Estate Loans
We study the role that recourse plays in the commercial real estate loan contracts of the largest U.S. banks. We find that recourse is valued by lenders and is treated as a substitute for conventional equity. At origination, recourse loans have rate spreads that are at least 20 basis points lower and loan-to-value ratios that are around 3 percentage points higher than non-recourse loans. Dynamically, recourse affects loan modification negotiations by providing additional bargaining power to the lender. Recourse loans were half as likely to receive accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic, ...
Working Paper
Loan Modifications and the Commercial Real Estate Market
Banks modify more CRE loans than CMBS, contributing to better loan performance when property incomes decline. However, banks have higher delinquency rates for less-stressed loans, consistent with modification policies encouraging strategic default. Motivated by these facts, we develop a tradeoff theory model in which lenders vary in their modification technologies. Modification frictions discourage strategic renegotiation, enabling CMBS to offer higher LTV loans and attract borrowers seeking higher leverage. The model produces cross-lender differences in LTVs and spreads consistent with the ...
Working Paper
On Commercial Construction Activity's Long and Variable Lags
We use microdata on the phases of commercial construction projects to document three facts regarding time-to-plan lags: (1) plan times are long—about 1.5 years—and highly variable, (2) roughly 40 percent of projects are abandoned in planning, and (3) property price appreciation reduces the likelihood of abandonment. We construct a model with endogenous planning starts and abandonment that matches these facts. The model has the testable implication that supply is more elastic when there are more "shovel ready" projects available to advance to construction. We use local projections to ...
Working Paper
CRE Redevelopment Options and the Use of Mortgage Financing
A significant share of commercial real estate (CRE) investment properties—about half by our estimates—are purchased without a mortgage. Using comprehensive microdata on transactions in the US CRE market, we analyze which types of properties are purchased without a mortgage, highlighting the important role of renovation or redevelopment options. We show that mortgage-financed properties are less likely to be subsequently redeveloped, and that owners anticipate these redevelopment frictions and avoid mortgage financing for properties with greater redevelopment options. These effects were ...
Working Paper
Pretend or Amend? On Evergreening in CRE
Loan modifications can either amplify or mitigate credit losses depending on the strategy lenders employ. Using detailed supervisory data and a model accounting for competing extension motivations (temporary repayment difficulties, foreclosure costs, and loss recognition costs), I assess why banks extend CRE loans. I find that extensions predominantly address temporary payment frictions, both in normal times and following the Spring 2023 bank stress episode. Contrary to banks "extending-and-pretending" during that episode, banks increased income and principal paydown requirements for ...
Working Paper
CRE Development Potential and the Selection of Opportunity Zones
Place-based policies are often caught between two potentially conflicting aims: (i) directing aid to needy communities and (ii) spurring investment. We study this tradeoff in the context of the Opportunity Zones (OZ) program. Leveraging unique phase-level microdata on commercial construction projects, we show that US state governors prioritized designating tracts where construction projects were already being planned. About two-thirds of the greater construction growth in OZs can be attributed to this selection. States prioritizing tracts with greater investment opportunities observed larger ...
Working Paper
Intermediary Segmentation in the Commercial Real Estate Market
Banks, life insurers, and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) lenders originate the vast majority of U.S. commercial real estate (CRE) loans. While these lenders compete in the same market, they differ in how they are funded and regulated, and therefore specialize in loans with different characteristics. We harmonize loan-level data across the lenders and review how their CRE portfolios differ. We then exploit cross-sectional differences in loan portfolios to estimate a simple model of frictional substitution across lender types. The substitution patterns in the model match well the ...
Working Paper
Housing Bust, Bank Lending & Employment : Evidence from Multimarket Banks
I use geographic variation in bank lending to study how bank real estate losses impacted the supply of credit and employment during the Great Recession. Banks exposed to distressed housing markets cut mortgage and small business lending relative to other banks in the same county. This lending contraction had real e?ects, as counties whose banks were exposed to adverse shocks in other markets su?ered employment declines, especially in young ?rms. This ?nding is robust to instrumenting for bank exposure to housing shocks using shocks in distant markets, exposure based on historical lending, or ...