Commercial real estate players can now take a sigh of relief as the federal government has expanded coverage of the Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility (TALF) which will absorb commercial mortgage-backed securities. The U.S. Treasury has announced that commercial mortgage-backed securities can now be used as collateral for a commercial estate firm to avail of TALF. This means commercial borrowers now have a means of refinancing their mature debts.

This positive development came about after the Commercial Economic Stimulus Work Group of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) drew up a plan to address issues detrimental to the survival of the commercial real estate industry and successfully influenced the federal government to adopt its proposal.

The work group pointed out the need to save the industry which has been generating more than 9 million jobs and contributing much to the local and national coffers to fund the delivery of social services and put up infrastructure facilities. Now that credit is hard to come by because financial institutions are having a hard time navigating the financial crisis, the TALF expansion that will absorb commercial estate loans is indeed a welcome development.