At a glance
- Combined volume of $87.2 billion was up 2% from the same months of 2025.
- A fund holding single-borrower paper still has office as its largest property type at 19% of balance, while a conduit fund is 26% multifamily and 13% retail.
- In the first nine months of 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2023, conduits out-issued single-borrower deals.
Single-borrower and large-loan CMBS deals took 76% of private-label issuance through September, $66 billion against $21.2 billion of conduits, Commercial Observer reported. That is $3.12 for every conduit dollar.
Combined volume of $87.2 billion was up 2% from the same months of 2025. Single-borrower and large-loan issuance rose 1% and conduit volume rose 6%. Single-borrower deals out-issued conduits in every month of the year.
A fund holding single-borrower paper still has office as its largest property type at 19% of balance, while a conduit fund is 26% multifamily and 13% retail. The rotation behind those numbers is sharp: single-borrower office volume fell to $12.5 billion from $22.4 billion a year earlier and single-borrower retail halved to $5.1 billion, while apartments rose to $10 billion from $2.9 billion and hotels to $11.3 billion from $8.8 billion. Conduits spread the smaller loans — 1,067 of them averaging $20 million.
| Measure | Single-borrower and large-loan | Conduit |
|---|---|---|
| Volume, January–September 2026 | $66 billion | $21.2 billion |
| Change from same months of 2025 | +1% | +6% |
| Largest deal | $3.05 billion, Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas | $1.2 billion, BMARK 2026-V21, 49 loans |
| Property shares cited | Office 19% of balance; data centers 9% | Multifamily 26%; retail 13% |
In the first nine months of 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2023, conduits out-issued single-borrower deals. Single-borrower share was 42% in 2017, 37% in 2020 and 47% in 2023. Conduit volume has stayed between $13 billion and $28 billion in each January-to-September stretch, while single-borrower issuance has more than doubled. The report describes single-borrower share as surging in strong CMBS years, 2021 and 2024 onward, and retreating in weak ones, which suggests the 76% figure owes as much to a strong issuance year as to any change in how deals are structured.
Deal size separates the channels. In February a loan on the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas became a $3.05 billion bond deal on its own. The year's biggest conduit, BMARK 2026-V21, pooled 49 loans into $1.2 billion, and 15 single-borrower and large-loan deals were bigger than it. Behind the Cosmopolitan came a $2.1 billion Jersey City multifamily portfolio, a $2.05 billion QTS data center portfolio financed by nine banks and $1.9 billion on Two Manhattan West; 9 West 57th Street, One Madison Avenue and 10 Hudson Yards filled out the top 10.
Seven banks originate most of the single-borrower volume, according to the report. Office remains the largest single-borrower property type at 19% of balance even after the $9.9 billion year-over-year drop, and data centers reached $6.2 billion, or 9% of the balance.
Reported by the Real estate debt desk from Commercial Observer. Published . Corrections