Irish Blogs

Commercial Loan Modification

Economic experts have been foreseeing the emergence of a crisis in the commercial property market that could even be worse than that situation in residential housing.  The continued rise in the number of people losing their jobs and the rising number of vacancies in commercial real estate are like dark clouds indicating that a storm is brewing.  It is easy to see this because this type of situation makes it much harder for the borrowers to come up with the loan payments.  And if they could not make the monthly payments, it naturally follows that they would not also be able to make good with the balloon payment at the end of the loan term.  Just like in the housing sector, the large number of defaults and foreclosures could worsen an already ailing economy.  It is here where commercial mortgage modification could provide assistance to the ailing property owners, the banks and the economy as a whole.

A possible way for this to work is that the bank may permit a permanent or temporary decrease in the rate as a way to help the borrower avoid foreclosure.  This is important because thousands of dollars could be eliminated from the debt burden of the borrower every month with just a one percent drop in the interest rate.  This kind of commercial mortgage modification could achieve much in providing the property owner some room to breathe while waiting for the economy to recover and for the properties to get more tenants again.

Another technique that can be used in commercial mortgage modification is to adjust the duration or maturity of the mortgage.  This could push back the due date of the balloon payment or even let the borrower completely avoid it if a source for refinancing is located.  The balloon payments are often present because the monthly payments for commercial loans are often based for a longer term than the actual loan term.  To illustrate, the monthly payments may be computed with 25 years as the loan duration but the real term may only be for 10 years.  Therefore, a large amount has to be paid just before the mortgage expires.  If the economy is booming, the property owner simply finds a source of refinancing or located a buyer for the property.  However, with the financial crisis, hunting for a bank to provide refinancing could be very hard because of the decline in property market values and the much reduced availability of loans.  The same could be true when looking for possible buyers of the property.

A commercial mortgage modification may also permit the borrower to hold back on the payments for a certain period of time.  To illustrate, the borrower may be allowed by the bank to skip three to six months in the payments without incurring penalty charges.  This would permit the property owner to look for more tenants and find ways to come up with the payments.

Meanwhile, commercial mortgage modification is also one of the workouts that are being touted by bank regulators to help the banks remain viable.  This is expected to minimize the number of foreclosures that could further damage the economy.

If you are looking for more click here to vsit CLR

Tags: , , , , , ,

Please share and enjoy:
  • Propeller
  • del.icio.us
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Slashdot
  • Mixx
  • TwitThis
  • Sphinn
  • Reddit

Tags: , , , , , ,

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.