Commercial Real Estate Loans – Categorization of an Investment Segment

Anotace: Commercial real estate loans (CREL) are a modern essential business segment and of major relevance to the financial stability of an economy as they interconnect the financial markets and the real economy. Consequently, CREL are of specific interest to regulatory authorities. As far as the author knows, there exists no universal definition of CREL in the global financial industry and the regulatory environment. This has been subject to criticism due to resulting gaps and bias in data generated by regulatory filing. This study contributes to academia and applied sciences by providing the missing link. It develops a comprehensive categorization of CREL on a foundation of 34 sources predominately provided by regulatory authorities in the US and the EU. The categorization is based on a qualitative synthesis of main CREL characteristics of this particular heterogeneous asset class outlined in the detected sources. The objective of this work is to support the development of a common understanding of this investment segment among banks, institutional investors and regulatory authorities in order to allow an accurate and prompt filing.