Single asset, single borrower (SASB) accounts for 76 percent of 2026 issuance of private label commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) through September. In this volume, money circulates from offices and retail to apartments and hotels, and seven banks have the most.
In February, one loan at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas turned into a $3.05 billion bond deal. There was no channel price this year because the largest, BMARK 2026-V21, collected 49 loans for $1.2 billion. Fifteen transactions with one borrower and a larger loan than that.
Through September, SASB and large loan deals totaled $66 billion, against $21.2 billion channel: $3.12 for every channel dollar, and 76 percent of private label CMBS issuance. Combined volume of $87.2 billion was up 2 percent from the same month in 2025, with SASB up 1 percent and channels up 6 percent. SASB is a channel that is published monthly every year.
That’s not always the case.
In the first nine months of 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2023, conduit out-issued single-borrower offers, and the SASBs share was 42 percent in 2017. The channel volume remained in a narrow band, $13 billion to $28 billion in each January-to-September worth more than SASB.
SASB has increased in strong CMBS years (2021, and 2024 onwards) and retreated in weak ones: The share fell to 37 percent in 2020 and to 47 percent in 2023.
SASB’s biggest deals read like a list of the country’s marquee assets. After Cosmopolitan, there is a 2.1 billion Jersey City, NJ, multifamily portfolio, a $2.05 billion QTS data center portfolio financed by nine banks, and $1.9 billion in Two Manhattan West. Manhattan office and mixed-use towers, including 9 West 57th Street, One Madison Avenue and 10 Hudson Yards, fill the top 10.
Where does the money go?
The two channels finance different buildings. Conduits remained the home of collateral each day, with multifamily 26 percent of the balance and retail 13 percent spread across 1,067 loans averaging $20 million. SASB money goes to trophy assets and large portfolios.
Office is still the largest SASB property type at 19 percent of the balance, but SASB office volume fell to $12.5 billion from $22.4 billion in the previous year, and SASB retail half to $5.1 billion.
Apartments and hotels picked up the slack with SASB multifamily up to $10 billion (up from $2.9 billion) and hotels to $11.3 billion (up from $8.8 billion). Data centers also reached $6.2 billion, accounting for 9 percent of SASB’s balance. In both channels, multifamily’s share more than doubled to 18 percent (up from 8 percent), while retail fell to 9 percent (down from 16 percent).
The structure is also different, with 60 percent of the balance being SASB
floating rate, while the channel loan is fixed, 90 percent is interest only, with a weighted average coupon of 6.43 percent.
Initial leaderboard
Seven banks write most of the CMBS market.
Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citi lead the ranking of CRED iQ 2026 loans that contribute to SASB channels and deals, and the top seven account for 80 percent of the volume caused. Goldman Sachs raised $12 billion, with $10.1 billion in the SASB bid. Citi led the conduit loan with $2.6 billion.
The rankings were virtually unchanged from 2025 with the same eight banks in the top eight, with Citi moving up to third and Morgan Stanley dropping to fifth.
Publishing is running slightly ahead of last year, and SASB is still setting pace with three out of every four private label dollars. What has changed is collateral: less offices and shops, more apartments, hotels and data centers. Conduits are still financing the middle of the broad market, one $20 million loan at a time, but the big money in 2026 is moving one asset at a time.
Liam Mulcahy is senior product manager for CRE data and AI implementation at CRED iQ.