The refinancing wall, metro by metro. Three maps that rarely match.

One number nationally. Three cities by volume.

Nationally the wall is a single figure. The Mortgage Bankers Association counts $875 billion of commercial and multifamily loans maturing in 2026 and $652 billion in 2027. In the bond market, Trepp puts the 2026 hard maturities at $76.6 billion of a $146.2 billion calendar, with 39 % of the hard maturities due in the fourth quarter. Trepp’s hard maturities are fixed-rate loans reaching their date and floating-rate loans with no extension options left.

The metro view needs loan-level records. In August, CRED iQ mapped the conduit and large single-borrower bond loans maturing from September 2026 to June 2027 across 371 metro areas: a balance of $87.8 billion. 10 metros hold 57.8 % of it. New York alone holds $15.87 billion, 18.1 % of the total, followed by Los Angeles at $7.81 billion and San Francisco at $4.70 billion. Pick a bar to see what it is.

A few loans move whole metros. A single Honolulu retail property carries a $1.73 billion loan maturing in June 2027, and a $1.69 billion office loan on Binney Street in Cambridge matures in May 2027. CRED iQ notes the Honolulu loan is larger than the combined balance maturing in most other metros in its data.

One caution on New York. Circlemark, which indexes the mortgages recorded in the city, counts $5.9 billion of commercial mortgages of $1 million or more with stated maturities from September 2026 to September 2027, 79 % of it in Manhattan. That is not the same measure as CRED iQ’s $15.87 billion. CRED iQ counts bond loans across the whole metro, including New Jersey, for a different window. Circlemark counts recorded mortgages from every lender in the four boroughs and calls its figure a floor, because 7,445 active loans have no stated date. We have not reconciled the two, and they should not be compared as if they measured the same thing.

The distress map is a different map.

Each source counts distress its own way. KBRA counts a bond loan as distressed when it is 30+ days delinquent, or current but with the special servicer. Its January 2026 rate for all private-label bond loans was 10.4 %, up from 9.7 % a year earlier and 7.2 % the year before. CRED iQ counts delinquent, special-serviced and foreclosed loans, and its April 2026 rate across the 50 largest metros was 12.2 %.

By metro, the two sources agree on some places and split on others. KBRA’s January count of the 20 largest metros put San Francisco at 22.6 %, Chicago at 21.8 % and Philadelphia at 17.2 % at the top, and San Diego at 0.4 % and Boston at 1.7 % at the bottom. CRED iQ’s April count of the 50 largest put Providence at 71.0 %, Hartford at 44.1 % and Denver at 42.3 %. Switch the view.

Two cautions. The cohorts differ: KBRA reads the 20 largest metros in January and CRED iQ the 50 largest in April, and a metro with a few large loans swings widely. The sources also do not match where they overlap: KBRA has Houston at 13.9 %, while CRED iQ lists Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta as below 10 % three months later.

Inside the maturing pool the picture is more mixed than the headline. CRED iQ’s August review put the distress rate of the maturing bond loans at 5.55 %. Office is the highest at 9.4 % on $23.86 billion, but apartments, at 7.5 % on $5.01 billion, sit above retail at 3.5 % and hotels at 4.4 %. A second layer sits behind the distress: Circlemark counts 166 loans worth $2.48 billion in New York City that are past their stated date with no payoff recorded, and quotes Trepp’s August 2026 data that loans past maturity were 81 % of newly delinquent bond balances.

The loans that look fine and cannot refinance.

CRED iQ re-sized every apartment loan in agency and bond deals maturing between October 2026 and December 2028, $136 billion in all, at today’s new-loan coupons plus September’s rate hike. 23 % of the loans and 31 % of the balance could not refinance without new equity: $6.8 billion, a median shortfall of 15 % of the loan, or about $25,000 per apartment.

By metro, the order is not the distress order. In San Francisco 70 % of maturing apartment debt falls short, in Atlanta 55 % and in Denver 51 %. Chicago is at 13 % and Los Angeles at 24 %. Phoenix, with one of the lowest distress rates in KBRA’s count, has 46 % short. The twelve metros hold 43 % of the maturing balance but 60 % of the equity needed. Switch the measure: the order changes when you count dollars instead of shares.

Two things move the gap: the rate and the year the loan was written. Each further 25 basis points adds about $1.0 billion, and two more hikes would leave 39 % of maturing apartment debt short. Loans written in 2021 and 2022 carry a median coupon of 3.35 %, and 57 % of their balance needs new equity, against 19 % for loans written in 2016 to 2018. Income is the other half: loans that clear the test have grown net operating income a median 31 % since underwriting, while those that fall short have seen it fall a median 12 %.

The same arithmetic works for bond loans of every property type. CRED iQ compared the average rate on maturing bond loans, 5.44 %, with the rate on loans written May to August 2026, 6.58 %: a reset of about 114 basis points. Mixed-use, retail and office face resets of 172 to 178 basis points, hotels only 32. CRED iQ calls the hidden part shadow distress: a loan with no problem today can still walk into a materially higher payment the day it refinances.

Side by side, and then your own number.

Pick a metro to see where it stands. San Francisco is on all three maps: $4.70 billion of the bond wall, 22.6 % distress and 70 % of its apartment debt short. Chicago is the opposite case: 21.8 % and 25.6 % distress, but the smallest apartment gap at 13 %, because its stress is in office and hotel loans. Phoenix and Atlanta are the third kind: low distress, large gap.

Trepp’s review of 2024 and 2025 maturities found that bond loans that paid off on time had average debt yields of 13–14 %, while the loans that failed to refinance averaged about 9 %. CRED iQ’s apartment test is the same idea in dollars: the new loan is what the income carries at a 1.25× coverage on a 30-year schedule at today’s coupon, and the gap is the old balance less that loan. The calculator starts at CRED iQ’s own example, 20 Exchange Place, a 767-unit tower in New York with a $246 million loan at 4.01 % and $15.5 million of income, where the new loan is about $183 million and the gap about $63 million. Enter your own loan.

What to do with this

If you own or lend on apartment or office debt that matures before the end of 2028: size the refinance on today’s coupon and today’s income before the lender does, and count the check you may have to write. A loan that is current today can still be the one that needs it.

If you buy or lend into these maturities: the biggest gaps are not where the distress headlines are, so work from the loan list by metro. Titleman’s Underwriting returns a package for a deal with the debt, income and expenses laid out against the records, so the gap is a number you can check.