WASHINGTON, DC-It’s official. The US is $14.3 trillion in debt and cannot go any higher unless via Congressional action. That, of course, is not going to happen today or anytime soon. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has bought time before the nation starts to default on its obligation via some accounting sleight of hand: according to reports, he will be tapping retirement accounts and pension funds of federal workers, money that he is legally obliged to return.

The day of reckoning is now August 2, 2011. Make that one of the days of reckoning. There are, in fact, a number of events coalescing right now that are poised to have a significant impact on the commercial real estate industry with June and July pivotal months.

One is the end of the Federal Reserve Bank’s controversial "quantitative easing" program, QE2, set for June. This will usher in, it is widely agreed, a period of rising interest rates. Also, pretend and extend, that informal, off-the-record policy of banks to salvage their borrowers’--not to mention their own--real estate positions appears to be winding down as regulators clamp down on banks and their now robust balance sheets.

Bank regulators, content with banks’ profit margins, are less inclined to tolerate pretend and extend, C. Geoffrey Mitchell, a Los Angeles-based partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, tells GlobeSt.com. These profits margins, of course, are in large part due to low interest rates. As they rise they will pressure profits as well as increase cap rates for commercial real estate, reducing their value. This will make it harder for banks to absorb the losses and harder for property owners to refinance, he says. But regulators are not about to give banks the same freedom that they did two years ago.

"They are putting more pressure on lenders to deal with the worst of their loan problems because banks’ capital positions are stronger now than they were a year-and-a-half ago or two-years ago," Mitchell says. This is not to say that borrowers are unable to obtain concessions, Adam Weissburg, a partner at the Los Angeles office of Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP tells GlobeSt.com. "But many banks are holding the line and will demand significant paydowns." They are also requesting additional security to shore up depressed loan-to-value ratios, he adds.

All of this could be borne by the industry if it were relatively healthy--but it’s not. There is close to $300 billion worth of commercial mortgage maturities expected to peak in 2012 and 2013--with the first wave starting this year, according to Foresight Analytics, which along with Delta Associates and Real Capital Analytics, produces a quarterly look at the nation’s commercial real estate distress.

What does it all add up to? June is poised to mark the beginning of the end of not only the recent low-interest rate era but also of policies that have kept many properties afloat, just as the next wave of loans go shopping for refinancing. In the midst of what is sure to be a Congressional-Presidential bloodletting clash over the debt ceiling.

"Any of these factors--interest rates or a scaling back of banks working with borrowers, or prolonged uncertainty about the debt ceiling--could easily tip up back into accelerating distress," Greg Leisch, CEO of Delta Associates tells GlobeSt.com.

The line of demarcation--the level at which interest rates can rise before more distress properties will start hitting the market--is widely agreed to be between 100 basis points to 150 basis points. "We believe that in the second half of this year Treasuries will move into the 350 basis point to 4% range," says William Hughes, senior VP and managing director in the Newport Beach, CA-headquarters office of Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp.

When that will happen, though, is subject to debate. Steve Pumper, executive managing director of Transwestern’s Investment Services Group, for example, believes the election year will have an undue influence on rates. "You cannot underestimate what is at stake in Washington and the pressure that will be utilized to keep money flowing and interest rates lower than they should be." More likely, Pumper says, there will be a significant uptick in interest rates, but not until 2013. "Then the trickle we are seeing now will turn into a moderated, controlled stream."