NEW YORK CITY—CMBS delinquencies kept right on inching downward in January, according to Trepp LLC data. The analytics firm said Tuesday that the late-pay rate dipped to 5.66% last month, a month-over-month decline of nine basis points and down 159 bps from a year ago. Delinquencies have declined in 18 of the past 20 months.

Last month saw $1.2 billion in delinquent loans pay off and another $500 million that were cured, versus $1.5 billion in newly delinquent deals. The tally of delinquent loans followed by Trepp stood at $29.9 billion at the end of January. Trepp also expanded its CMBS universe by $4 billion of deals that have seasoned for six months.

Indications are that Trepp will be further expanding its universe of newly securitized loans in the foreseeable future. “The CMBS market got off to a fast start in 2015 and conditions remain favorable for elevated issuance activity,' according to Trepp's January report. “Plenty of '15 loans will need to be refinanced, the 10-year treasury yield keeps decreasing and spread volatility has been modest. All of this means investors and issuers should stay busy for the foreseeable future.”

Manus Clancy, Trepp's senior managing director, provides more detail on January's newly securitized deals. “Several new conduits and a handful of single-asset deals made the rounds in the second half of the month,” he says. “The issuance engine is kicking into gear after a few weeks interrupted by the CREFC conference in Miami and snowstorms in the Northeast.”

By property type, lodging CMBS saw the biggest month-to-month decline—37 bps—and also remains the best-performing sector with a delinquency rate of 4.4%. Although multifamily CMBS remains the worst-performing property type with 8.81% delinquency, its four-bps decline was nonetheless an improvement from the prior month.

Office, by contrast, saw its late-pay rate worsen by 10 bps to 6.18%. Industrial's CMBS delinquency rate improved by 35 bps to 7.2%, while retail's six-point decline was the second-smallest improvement. The sector also represents the second-best-performing property type, with a delinquency rate of 5.6%.