NEW YORK CITY-In terms of basis points, the pace of CMBS defaults may have moderated in the past few quarters, but it has now cumulatively climbed above the 10% mark, Fitch Ratings said Friday. Defaults for fixed-rate US CMBS jumped 112 basis points in the third quarter to 10.6%, the ratings agency said, compared to a 133-bps rise to 9.48% at the end of the second quarter.

Last week, Horsham, PA-based Realpoint said that despite another large amount of monthly liquidations in September, the corresponding percentage of loans by unpaid balance in special servicing increased to 11.8% of all CMBS by unpaid balance in September, up from 11.74% a month prior. Realpoint said it’s the result of continued new loan transfer activity on a monthly basis.

Within the Fitch-rated universe, new loan defaults year to date are already at $21.66 billion, and have already surpassed the 12-month total of $17.75 billion for 2009. The number of loan defaults through Q3 almost equals to the full-year ’09 total: 1,452 and 1,464, respectively, according to Fitch.

In a statement, Fitch managing director Mary MacNeill says, “Loans continue to default at a record pace, with large loans driving the trend. She adds that hotel and office properties were “the largest contributors to defaults this past quarter.” Cumulative default rates rose 286 bps for hotel loans and 115 bps for office loans during Q3.

Fitch said the largest default during the quarter was the Innkeepers Portfolio, a 2007-vintage, $825- million loan. Coming in number two and three, respectively, were a pair of office loans: the $165-million One Alliance Center and the $160-million Highwoods Portfolio.

In its monthly report issued last week, Realpoint noted that “a cautious outlook for the hotel sector remains,” because a number of sizeable loans from the 2005-2008 vintage pools have had to significantly lower rates to maintain acceptable occupancy levels.  Some have incurred “severely distressed net cash flow performance” as a result. “Our expectations are that more of these loans may be asking for debt relief in the near future and may ultimately default if a resolution is not reached,” according to Realpoint.

In line with observations made by Mission Capital Advisors’ Peter Tobin in an interview with GlobeSt.com earlier month, Realpoint notes that declines in commercial real estate values and diminished equity in collateral properties “continue to prompt more struggling borrowers with marginal collateral performance to claim imminent default and ask for debt relief.”

The agency cites the “aggressive pro-forma underwriting” on loans between ’05 and ‘08, combined with extinguished debt service/interest reserves required at-issuance, with driving “an increasing number of loans with an inability to meet debt service requirements from in-place cash flow.” This is especially true, Realpoint says, with partial-term, interest-only loans that will begin to amortize or those that have recently converted.

Punctuating the ratings agencies’ reports, their colleagues at Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service last week placed more legacy CMBS on review for possible downgrade, or downgraded them outright. S&P, for instance, lowered its ratings on 19 tranches from four US CMBS CDO transactions. The downgraded tranches have a total issuance amount of $2.2 billion.