Entrepreneur Tom Ellsworth issues dire warning: Two converging issues will significantly impact the U.S. banking system. In 2024, $929bn—or one—fifth—of the $4.7tn in outstanding commercial mortgages held by U.S. lenders and investors will come due, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) 2023 Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Survey of Loan Maturity Volumes.
“This is particularly problematic for small to medium-sized commercial banks across America and private mortgage lenders, who are already straddling the tightrope of a high-interest rate environment. “The Fed just said the rates will be higher longer. Uh-oh!” Ellsworth said it in a recent episode of the PBD podcast. “There’s going to be bank failures, and there’s going to be commercial real estate that goes into receivership.”
What has become a significant concern now is that, with the persistently higher interest rates, some small lenders and certain regional banks could slide below the Federal Reserve’s widely speculated set-on minimum or capital requirement. Brian Graham, co-founder and partner at consulting firm Klaros Group, said lenders on the frontline are indeed seeing stress but that those small lenders and banks, those with less than $10 billion in assets, are not necessarily “close to insolvent.” Though Klaros Group’s latest analysis found 282 out of 4,000 U.S. banks are having problems with their maturing CRE loans and higher interest rates stamped in, Graham doesn’t expect repeat failures to Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank to happen in 2023. This time, with any luck, there will be “fewer bank failures” because the banks would be prepared, having learned a lesson from the crisis last year.
Ellsworth, commenting in the PBD podcast, was less than convinced: “What do you mean ‘fewer bank failures’? That would be like saying, ‘Hey, when the hurricane just goes by, there’s gonna be less rain,’ but it’s still raining!” Default on loans, especially maturing CRE loans, in the current “higher-for-longer” rate environment of the Fed will create the perfect storm for private lenders and regional banks. The International Monetary Fund said that higher interest rates have started to expose vulnerabilities among banks worldwide, warning that loan losses are likely to tick up as consumers and businesses feel a pinch in their borrowing costs.
When rates increase, it applies downward pressure on the price of bonds and other debt securities, causing them to be valued at a lower value, devaluing banks’ investments, and putting banks under funding pressure in emergency withdrawal situations where banks may need to sell such securities at a loss.
Indeed, it will leave smaller lenders and regional banks short on liquidity if the spread of the tightening spreads. The debt in the marketplace for new CRE borrowings will disappear; ergo, this could be catastrophic regarding defaults. While the MBA has calculated that the necessity to refinance in this sector with the regional banks is vastly overrated and that necessary diversification to keep the sector stable is already in place, Moody’s Analytics feels that $929 billion of maturing CRE mortgages need refinancing.
Banks must pass the stress test by the Federal Reserve, which accepts the level of losses under such supervision to prevent the possibility of the bank’s failure. Banks have to brace themselves for the financial pressures. Now, the U.S. banking system is coming under that significant pressure at just the right time, as the deadline for hundreds of millions of dollars in these maturing loans approaches. The following months will be pretty telling to know if small and regional banks can maneuver these issues without collapse.
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