A 'Hyper-Competitive' Debt Market Is Failing To Rouse Buyers, JLL Finds
Commercial real estate buyers are taking a step back amid global macroeconomic uncertainty, but lenders have never been more active.
A new liquidity cycle has begun, and it’s defined by a deep pool of lenders creating what JLL describes as a “hyper-competitive debt market” defined by creditors fighting to finance projects, pushing the brokerage’s Global Credit Intensity Rating index to new highs.
"We are seeing a hyper-competitive financing environment," JLL Capital Markets CEO Richard Bloxam said in a statement. "The sheer volume of debt capital chasing yield is near all-time highs, and lenders are moving aggressively to win business. When you combine this highly competitive debt environment with a steady rebuilding of investor bidding pools, it's clear that a powerful new liquidity cycle is underway."
The JLL credit index tracks active lenders and competitiveness in loan terms and has steadily marched upward since the start of the year. But the surging desire to lend cash hasn’t been met with the same kind of enthusiasm from buyers.
JLL’s Global Bid Intensity Index has been relatively flat for the last two years, indicating that there’s roughly the same number of bidders on potential acquisitions and that bid-ask spreads have only modestly compressed.
The diverging performance between the credit and bidder indexes can partially be attributed to rising levels of debt refinancing as the extend-and-pretend era fades and owners adjust operations to today’s rate environment.
The bidder intensity index has been sliding since and lags peak levels from 2021 by a large margin even as the number of distinct lenders submitting quotes on loans remains near all-time highs.
Lenders are also offering increasingly better terms to compete, which has driven an increase in loan-to-value ratios for winning bids since the start of the year, according to JLL.
"The credit markets globally are currently acting as a significant catalyst for this recovery, providing vital optionality for property owners facing loan maturities," Trey Morsbach, the head of U.S. debt advisory services at JLL, said in a statement.
Commercial real estate investment started strong in 2026, with first-quarter investment in the Americas jumping 25% year-over-year to $113B, according to JLL. But the conflict with Iran that began on Feb. 28 upended economic forecasts and corporate investment targets.
U.S. transaction volume fell 33% in April from the prior year to $24.7B, with deal velocity buffeted by the run-up in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield that’s used to price debt interest rates. Yields are hovering around or above the 4.5% ceiling that some economists say breaks the math on debt underwritten before 2022, when the Federal Reserve began raising its benchmark rate.
