MONEY GOES
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C O M M E R C I A L R E A L E S T A T E
lending appears to be healthy for now, though banks con-
tinue to tighten standards for these loans, and a study done in
April indicates that the activity is slowing. The Mortgage Bank-
ers Association reports that lenders closed 2016 with some
$491 billion in commercial and multifamily originations, off
by 3 percent from the year before. Most of the decline was in
the fourth quarter, which was down by 7 percent from the
2015 comparable quarter. And preliminary data for the first
quarter of this year suggest that those fourth-quarter trends
have carried over, according to Jamie Woodwell, the MBA's vice
president of research and economics.
Further, roughly 20 percent of the respondents in the Fed-
eral Reserve's loan officer survey for the first quarter say they
are tightening standards, although that is down from a peak of
roughly 30 percent at about the middle of last year.
"This is part of a continuing theme since 2009," observed
Gabriel Silverstein, managing director of New York City–based