Office Property Meltdown Begins to Show for Banks: Credit Weekly

Slumping office property values are rippling through US banks, with smaller lenders in particular ramping up the use of loan modifications in their commercial real estate books.

The typical bank with less than $100 billion of of assets modified 0.32% of its CRE loans in the first nine months of the year, a Moody’s Ratings report found. That’s a big increase from the first half of 2024, when it was just about 0.1%.

But it’s also a far lower percentage than other kinds of lenders have modified: for medium-sized banks, the share was 1.93% in the first nine months, ...