EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Blackstone Defaults: Subprime Meltdown 2?

Though off in Finland, this story should probably receive more notice due to the “mortgage-backed” angle.

Remember the 2008 Subprime Meltdown, fueled by easy taxpayer-backed Fannie Mae money and bundled subprime mortgage securities? And how all sorts of banking fatcats got bailed out and never paid a price for their shenanigans?

Well, mortgage backed assets never went away, they just moved into commercial real estate. There’s untold trillions of dollars in Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) across the world, and almost no one is keeping track of them. The average retail investor probably knows less about CMBS now than they did about subprime mortgages in 2008.

And you know one of the hardest-hit sectors following the Flu Manchu lockdowns? Commercial real estate.

Noted earlier today, San Francisco’s office vacancy rate hit a record high 27.6%, and New York City is also at a record 17%.