The Mortgage Bankers Association has revised its multifamily and commercial lending forecast for the full year, taking into account
The 2024 forecast now anticipates there will be just $539 billion in new loans on income-producing properties this year, down from January's estimate of $576 billion.
But the group's 2025 numbers suggest that originations could rebound to $665 billion next year.
Lower market financing costs combined with a large number of loans likely to refinance led to the more optimistic projections for 2025, according to Jamie Woodwell, the association's head of commercial real estate research.
"Moderation in interest rates, coupled with the large volume of loans maturing in coming quarters, should prompt an uptick in mortgage borrowing from low levels we've seen over the last two years," he said in a press release.
"The exact timing of the bounceback will depend on how quickly property owners jump on long-term interest rates that are down significantly from where they were a year ago," Woodwell added.
In a market where the renter populace has been growing at
Apartment lending is on track to rise to $390 billion in 2025, and while the MBA downwardly revised the 2024 multifamily total to $297 billion from January's $339 billion estimate, even at that pace it would be up 21% from the previous year.
Total estimates for commercial and multifamily originations in 2023 marked that year as one of the weakest seen in around a decade, according to the association's January forecast.
The MBA had anticipated a "marginal" rebound from those low levels this year in the event
