We deployed our world-spanning journalistic resources well,one crack reporter anywaythis week to San Diego for the Mortgage Bankers Association annual meeting, buttonholing as many finance pros as we could.We also partied atop Mister As famous rooftop restaurant with our hosts JLL (and where you can watch airplanes approach San Diego International at eye-level). We caught up with JLLs Jonathan Schneider (out of Boston), Michael Gwin and Jimmy Board,Starwood Property Trusts Warren De Haan, and JLLs John Ream. Jonathan is still feeling the buzz of arranging financing for the $35M sale of 11 Beacon St in Downtown Boston.

We sat down with Arbor Commercial Mortgages COO John Caulfield about what he sees for 2013s lending market. And it may all beabout the conduits. To me, its a game changer with the conduits coming back into the market, John says. It means there is more capital chasing deals, in turn creating competition. But, with new capital in the marketplace, John questions whether lenders in general will feel the "pressure to be more aggressive. We have to be careful to manage the borrowers expectations.