Top Regulator: These Cities Could Be Seeing A Real Estate Bubble
NYC, Boston, S.F. and DC multifamily lending is getting a little frothy, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry (pictured) said Monday.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the top US banking regulators, recently reissued its guidance on commercial real estate lending, and has been pushing lenders to tighten loan standards since late 2015—when Curry said lending practices were looking just like the run-up to the 2008 subprime crisis, Fortune reports.
The reissuing of the guidance “was meant to flag the issue for the banks so they can take corrective action now on their own before going through any type of examination cycle,” Curry told the Reuters Financial Regulation Summit in DC. “The actual loan terms and covenants are weakening.”
Banks, for their part, told the Fed this month that they tightened commercial real estate lending during Q1, despite some anecdotal evidence to the contrary. [Fortune]
