Like the rest of the working world, commercial real estate lenders, intermediaries and borrowers have developed new ways of doing business over the last year. They recognize that mutual flexibility is crucial to keeping deals from falling through. At the most fundamental level, the pandemic has forced providers and arrangers of debt and equity to elevate their due diligence processes, to scrutinize terms of underwriting even more closely based on a variety of factors. Lenders have found themselves reckoning with political dynamics, revising loan terms for commercial properties based on the severity of COVID-19 infection rates and shelter-in-place orders in a given region. The nuts and bolts of dealing with elevated requests for loan modifications were central topics at the “Commercial Mortgage Stress in the Age of COVID-19” panel at the annual Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) CREF 2021 event. The event was conducted in a virtual format this year. Mark Weibel, partner and chair of real estate capital markets practice group at law firm Thompson & Knight LLP, moderated this panel. The pandemic has produced clear winners and losers in terms of asset classes, forcing lenders to be more selective with their deals. In many cases, this selectivity has led …
