Office CMBS Leads the Way in New Defaults

NEW YORK CITY-Newly defaulted office CMBS is the driver of a 30-basis-point increase in the cumulative default rate for conduit securitized loans, Fitch Ratings said Friday. The CDX for the $569 billion of fixed-rate CMBS issued between 1993 and today was 13.5% as of Sept. 30, according to the locally based ratings agency, with office loans comprising $1.4 billion of the $2.2 billion in newly delinquent CMBS during the third quarter and more than 50% of the year-to-date total.

The quarter-over-quarter increase was five bps higher than the uptick between Q1 and Q2 of this year. However, the YTD rise has fallen short of bearing out Fitch’s projections at the start of 2012, when the firm forecast a CDX of 14.5% by year’s end.