What CREFC Miami Revealed About CRE Debt Markets In 2026

CRE debt market participants gather for the first big event of the year

The Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC), a trade organization for the CRE debt industry, kicked off the year with its annual conference, held January 11–14 in Miami Beach, Florida. The event brought together lenders (balance sheet and securitization), credit investors, and service providers across the CRE debt ecosystem to discuss the market backdrop for 2026. While financing and structuring questions were front and center, sessions repeatedly discussed the macro conditions and property-level fundamentals that ultimately drive credit outcomes.

The following are the Altus Group Research Team’s key takeaways from the event.

A policy-heavy macro backdrop set the tone for the conference

Policy changes were front and center this year. A flurry of market-moving policy announcements hit headlines in the days leading up to the conference, shaping hallway conversations and panel Q&A:

• January 7: “Wall Street landlords” push – President Trump said he was taking steps to prohibit large institutional investors from purchasing additional single-family homes (later followed by a January 20 executive order)

• January 8: Agency MBS bid – President Trump announced he was directing a $200B purchase of mortgage bonds via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, framed as a way to bring down housing costs and mortgage rates

• January 9: Consumer credit intervention – President Trump called for a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates, hitting banks

• January 11: Added pressure to Fed independence – Reports emerged that DOJ had opened an investigation tied to Jerome Powell’s prior testimony about Fed building renovations

• January 12: CREFC Miami 2026 began.

Despite the noise, it did not meaningfully shake the tone of the conference. Coming off a record year for Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) issuance of roughly $162B in 2025 and an active start to January (which several issuers described as feeling like the “13th month of 2025”), sentiment remained positive.

Attendance at the event even topped 2,400 participants, a meaningful increase from 2025. But optimism came with an asterisk: policy uncertainty is back in the underwriting.

Macro uncertainty and a K-shaped economy remain central concerns

Macro risk continues to influence underwriting and capital allocation, and the market’s two-speed dynamic remains clear. Strong assets and sponsors are still finding liquidity and financing, while the rest remain challenged and see fewer exit paths.

Several speakers pointed to a deepening K-shaped economy, with lower-income consumers under increasing financial pressure while high-income consumer cohorts remain resilient. That divergence showed up repeatedly in discussions around hotels, segments of the retail sector, and the workforce multifamily sector.

Fed rate cuts were generally viewed as supportive for the CRE financing outlook, but not transformative. Conference participants expected the 10-year Treasury to end 2026 near 4.0% and most expected up to two or three (25 bps) Fed cuts this year.

Tone shifts across property sectors

While the office sector was not viewed as “fixed,” the tone and sentiment around the sector has shifted to one that is no longer uniformly impaired. Roughly a quarter of recent Single Asset Single Borrower (SASB) CMBS issuance has been tied to office, reflecting improving liquidity for high-quality assets in select markets such as Midtown Manhattan, Uptown Dallas, and parts of San Francisco. However, there remains a significant portion of the office sector that is functionally obsolete or deeply out of favor.

The more notable tonal shift was around multifamily. It is no longer assumed to be the default low-risk sector. Multifamily drew heightened scrutiny due to expense pressure eroding Debt-Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR), aggressive underwriting from the 2021–2022 vintages, and sponsor fatigue. Panelists noted that several multifamily loans underwritten in 2023–2024 are already in special servicing, and that a meaningful proportion of 2023-vintage conduit multifamily loans were already delinquent by mid-2025.

Capital is rotating into alternative sectors viewed as offering better long-term fundamentals. Senior housing was repeatedly cited as one of the most compelling risk-adjusted opportunities, while data centers now account for more than 10% of SASB issuance. A recurring caution, however, was that crowding risk is rising in these sectors, with several speakers warning that returns could compress.

Improved liquidity, but capital is highly selective

Financing conditions have improved, lenders are more active, and spreads have tightened in pockets of the market. Opening remarks repeatedly pointed to the surge in corporate bond issuance in the first days of January (one of the strongest year-starts on record) as evidence that institutional fixed-income demand is clearly back, and that appetite is already spilling over into structured credit. Multiple issuers noted that early-January CMBS execution felt unusually smooth, and several large SASB deals that were pushed from late 2025 due to complexity were now moving forward.

Panelists also pointed to the aggressive return of regional banks, increased GSE caps, and renewed insurer activity as further proof that balance-sheet and securitized capital are both back in the market. At the same time, liquidity is not being deployed evenly across all of CRE. Capital is concentrating in assets with durable cash flow, low near-term capex needs, and high-conviction refinance or sale exits. Across panels, a common refrain was that markets feel better about the ability to refinance than the willingness to transact, with pricing gaps still holding back transaction deal volume.

CMBS activity is being driven by refinancings, not acquisitions

Panelists repeatedly described January as feeling like the “13th month of 2025,” with deal pipelines carrying over from late 2025 and investor demand proving deeper than many had expected. But the mix of activity matters. The conference reinforced that refinancings account for the lion’s share, while acquisition financing remains constrained by pricing friction and macro uncertainty. Several speakers noted that two-thirds or more of recent originations have been tied to refinancings, extensions, or recapitalizations rather than new purchases.

A consistent view across panels was that a meaningful return of acquisition activity is unlikely without a notable decline in the 10-year Treasury yield. Bid-ask spreads are expected to remain wide and equity capital cautious, keeping transaction volumes subdued.

Securitized markets are adapting rather than deteriorating

One of the defining tensions running through CREFC Miami 2026 was a paradox: issuance is booming as delinquencies continue to rise, and the direction of the economy remains relatively uncertain. While the combination of rising issuance and rising distress could be interpreted as a warning sign, many participants did not see immediate cause for concern. The reason for the more optimistic interpretation: stress is largely concentrated in pockets (e.g., select office vintages, post-2021 multifamily, tightly underwritten floating-rate loans) rather than indicative of broad-based credit deterioration.

The overall CMBS delinquency rate currently stands above 7.0% and appears to be stabilizing, while office CMBS delinquencies remain elevated at roughly 16%. Strong assets, high-quality sponsors, and institutional-grade collateral are still finding abundant liquidity across the full range of debt providers: banks, insurance companies, debt funds, mortgage REITs, and CMBS. This is why many panelists framed the current moment as one of adaptation rather than deterioration.

CREFC Miami opened 2026 with constructive sentiment and improving liquidity, supported by a strong securitized credit backdrop and a market that feels more functional than it did a year ago. But the next phase of this cycle will be defined by selectivity. Outcomes will diverge by sponsor quality, basis, and asset execution, and with policy volatility reintroducing a political risk premium into rate-path and capital-allocation decisions, credit markets are learning to live with uncertainty rather than waiting for it to disappear.

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