Miami is one of the strongest CMBS markets in the country right now. Conduit desks compete hard for South Florida collateral — Lincoln Road and Wynwood retail, flagged hospitality from South Beach to Fort Lauderdale, stabilized office in Brickell — because the market's income growth and institutional sales comps make securitization math work. If you own cash-flowing commercial real estate in Miami-Dade, Broward, or Palm Beach County, a CMBS quote belongs in your process. Whether you should take it is a different question.

What conduit lenders are offering in 2026

The core CMBS package has not changed: five- or ten-year fixed-rate debt, non-recourse with standard carve-outs, priced at a spread over the corresponding treasury. What makes it competitive in South Florida right now is proceeds and structure. Conduit desks will underwrite to in-place cash flow with less haircutting than banks, routinely offer full-term or partial interest-only, and generally reach 65–75% of value on strong retail and hospitality income where a Florida bank might stop at 60%. Recent conduit quotes we have run on net-lease credit came in the high 6s, non-recourse, with full-term interest-only on the table.

CMBS also solves a problem specific to this market: sponsor profile. Miami capital is international, and conduit underwriting is asset-first — the loan is sized and priced on the property's income, not on a depository relationship or a domestic guarantor's global cash flow. For foreign nationals and complex ownership structures that make bank credit committees uncomfortable, securitized debt is often the cleanest path to institutional-scale proceeds. Our retail and hospitality practices see this weekly.

The trade: what you give up

  • The relationship. Your loan is sold into a trust. Day-to-day questions go to a master servicer working from the loan documents; anything unusual goes to a special servicer whose duty runs to bondholders, not to you.
  • Prepayment flexibility. Defeasance or yield maintenance makes early exit expensive for most of the term. A CMBS loan is a commitment to hold, not an option.
  • Cash control. Springing lockboxes, cash management triggers, and reserve requirements activate mechanically when coverage or occupancy tests trip — there is no banker to call for grace.
  • Modification rigidity. Lease approvals, partial releases, and structural changes run through servicing standards designed for a bond pool, on a bond pool's timeline.

A conduit loan is priced like a relationship and serviced like a bond. Sponsors remember the first half and forget the second.

When income stumbles: the Lincoln Road lesson

We saw the servicing side up close on Lincoln Road. A sponsor owned a landmark retail property on Miami Beach's pedestrian mall with a securitized loan in place. When a dispute involving a major tenant interrupted rental income, the loan's mechanics took over — and the sponsor faced payoff pressure at precisely the moment most lenders would have worked with them. We arranged a $22MM refinance with a credit union: ten-year fixed with an interest-only period, cash-out above the payoff, at 55% loan-to-value, with no prepayment penalty. The full story is in our Lincoln Road case study.

The point is not that CMBS is bad debt. It is that CMBS is inflexible debt, and the discount you receive for that inflexibility should be real. When a bank or credit union quote lands within striking distance of the conduit quote, the flexibility is usually worth the spread.

Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach: the apartment question

Sponsors searching for apartment loans in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, or Miami usually should not start with CMBS at all. Agency debt — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — prices inside conduit for conventional multifamily and carries better servicing. Where CMBS earns a place in a Florida apartment capital stack is at the edges: properties with a short-term-rental component, mixed-use assets where retail income drives the underwrite, or ownership structures the agencies will not accept. We quote both and let the numbers decide.

How we run a CMBS process

We put conduit desks in real competition — with each other and with the banks, credit unions, and life companies that want the same asset. Then we quote the whole cost: the coupon, the interest-only period, the reserves, the cash management triggers, and the exit. Piccard Financial has arranged $500MM+ since 1984, from Beverly Hills to Miami Beach, across permanent, bridge, and structured executions nationwide.

All rates and terms referenced are drawn from transactions arranged by Piccard Financial and recent lender quotes, reflect market conditions at the time, and change with the market. Nothing here is an offer or a commitment to lend.