NEW YORK CITY-In what’s seen as the largest new CMBS offering since the market collapsed amid the 2008 credit crisis, Deutsche Bank and UBS are reportedly on the verge of pricing a $2.2-billion deal, about one-third larger than a $1.56-billion sale of debt on Hilton Hotels this past fall. The Wall Street Journal reported that term sheets will be available early this week; a UBS spokesman and a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman both declined comment when contacted by GlobeSt.com.

To John D’Amico, CEO of the CRE Finance Council, the deal’s size illustrates the market’s renewed vigor a little more than a year after the first new post-crisis issue, a $400-million securitization from Developers Diversified Realty Corp. and Goldman Sachs. “What that tells me is that people are taking accumulation risk of taking loans on their balance sheet in order to get ready for larger deals to go to market,” D’Amico tells GlobeSt.com.

Compared to six months ago, the CMBS market now is “much stronger,” D’Amico says. “Last year, we did about $9 billion of multi-borrower, B-piece deals,” a figure that doesn’t include some resecuritizations and the Hilton transaction, which combined raised the 2010 total to about $11.6 billion. “Based on announcements that have been made—and you never know until they go out and price—we’ll see $9 billion in the first quarter of 2011.” Extrapolating from the Q1 estimates, D’Amico feels the projections of a $30-billion to $50-billion CMBS market this year are on target.

According to the WSJ, the Deutsche/UBS offering is backed by 47 loans on 83 properties. Leading the way in terms of property type is retail at 43.7%, followed by office at 39.5%, hospitality at 6.8%, mixed use at 5.9% and multifamily at 1.8%. The top states represented are Illinois at 16.2% of the pool, New York at 16.1%, Ohio at 15.9% and Arizona at 14.2%, says the WSJ.

While the deal’s size gets a little closer to the CMBS issues seen at the market’s peak, D’Amico emphasizes that it’s not a throwback to 2007. “At the peak of the market, you saw five-year interest-only deals,” he says. “There aren’t interest-only transactions at this point. The leverage levels are 60% to 70%, maybe 75%, instead of 80% to 90%.”

In the current environment, he says, “We’re seeing much more thoroughly underwritten deals and much more caution in terms of what loans are being made. Sure, there’s competition to make loans, because you’re still competing with insurance companies and banks. But it’s nowhere near as frothy as it was at the peak.”

Asked what property sectors are especially likely to be used as CMBS collateral, D’Amico rates office near the bottom. “People are still pretty cautious about office,” he says. “Office is heavily dependent on a resurgence of jobs. Until the economy turns around and we have jobs, office will lag.”

By contrast, multifamily is strong, “because that’s been supported by the GSEs for the past several years. It seems as though we’re getting more households, with people feeling a little better about getting jobs and maybe moving out of mom’s house to get their own apartment. Retail and hotel aren’t back to where they were at their peak, but there’s more confidence that business and pleasure travel will be up in 2011, and that people will be spending a little more money in stores.”

It’s not absolutely clear who’s investing in CMBS this time around. “The deals that are being done now are all private, 144a deals, so there isn’t a lot of publicity about who’s buying,” D’Amico says. “Anecdotally, insurance companies seem to be buying less than they used to, and there may be a little more hedge fund money. On a risk-adjusted basis, it’s a good yield. People are getting a better spread currently than they would with corporate bonds or Treasuries.”