The volume figures

KBRA reported on July 7, 2026 that eighteen private-label commercial mortgage-backed securities deals closed during June, totalling $13.4 billion. Year-to-date issuance through June reached $70.3 billion against $59.3 billion over the same period of 2025, a rise of 18.1 percent.

Trepp, publishing on August 11, put cumulative issuance through July at $76.2 billion measured by loan balance at sale, split between $58.0 billion of single-asset single-borrower deals and $16.1 billion of conduit transactions.

Commercial Real Estate Direct reported first-half issuance of $70.09 billion, a 17.7 percent annual increase. The small gap against KBRA's 18.1 percent reflects different cutoff dates and counting conventions rather than a dispute about the market; readers comparing published CMBS figures should always check whether a total is measured at deal close or at loan sale.

Office at the top of the table

Trepp's analysis put office property at 22.7 percent of issuance, or about $17.3 billion, ahead of industrial and multifamily at roughly 17.3 percent each.

Office leading CMBS issuance is a genuine reversal. Through the post-2020 period, office was the property type lenders retreated from first, and the sector accounted for the bulk of CMBS delinquency and loan modifications.

Analysis: issuance volume measures lending activity, not asset quality, and the composition matters. The dominance of single-asset single-borrower structures — $58.0 billion of the $76.2 billion — indicates that much of this is financing for individual large, identifiable buildings rather than pooled conduit lending against a diversified basket. Lenders have returned to specific office assets they can underwrite one by one. That is not the same as a return of confidence in office as a category.

The CRE CLO recovery is sharper still

Commercial real estate collateralised loan obligations, the structure used to finance transitional and value-add property, saw three deals totalling $3.2 billion in June, bringing year-to-date issuance to $26.1 billion — 50.9 percent above the prior year.

CRE CLO issuance is the most cyclical corner of this market because the underlying loans are short-term and floating-rate, made against properties undergoing repositioning. Issuance rising by half indicates that bridge lenders are originating again, which in turn indicates buyers are transacting on assets that require work.

Data centres are already inside the office-led rebound

Trepp's July analysis put data centres at 9.8 percent of single-asset single-borrower issuance for 2026, with no data centre collateral appearing in conduit deals at all — meaning that exposure sits entirely in bonds backed by one large, individually underwritten asset rather than in pooled deals bought by a broad base of bond investors.

That structural detail reinforces the same point the office share does: this issuance cycle is being built loan by loan around specific, creditworthy assets, not through the diversified pooling that characterised conduit lending before 2020.

Rising issuance has not stopped delinquencies from rising too

The other side of the record is credit performance. Trepp's CMBS delinquency rate rose 51 basis points during July 2026 to 7.86 percent, driven by a small group of very large loans moving to non-performing or foreclosure status, including office towers in Chicago and Seattle and two Times Square properties in New York. Office delinquency alone rose 34 basis points to 11.91 percent and multifamily delinquency rose 46 basis points to 7.69 percent.

Analysis: strong new issuance and a rising delinquency rate are not in tension — they describe different vintages of debt. New office loans in 2026 are typically financing specific, well-let buildings that lenders chose to underwrite; the delinquent loans are largely older debt written against assets and rent rolls that have since deteriorated. Investors buying into this year's CMBS wave are underwriting the assets lenders selected, not the back book generating today's defaults.

Context from the public record

The Securities and Exchange Commission maintains its own public CMBS issuance series, which recorded $54.2 billion across 90 issuances in the first quarter of 2026. That government series uses a broader definition than the private-label totals above and is not directly comparable, but it is the one figure in this article available free of charge and without a subscription.

The Trepp, KBRA and Commercial Real Estate Direct figures are proprietary commercial research. Each firm counts issuance on its own basis, which is why three credible sources can report three slightly different totals for what is nominally the same market.