SailGP in San Francisco

On the docks 

We hosted clients and friends at the Golden Gate Yacht Club this weekend for SailGP, the sailing league founded by Larry Ellison after he lost the America’s Cup in 2017.

Our little club became the home club for Team Oracle Racing. The fantastic book “The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing’s Greatest Race, the America’s Cup” tells the story of a blue-collar, bankrupt yacht club that became one of only six yacht clubs in the world to have won the America’s Cup over its 172-year history. Think of that: 172 years and 6 clubs. The list now stands at

1. New York Yacht Club (USA) – Dominated from 1851 to 1983.
2. Royal Perth Yacht Club (Australia) – Won in 1983.
3. San Diego Yacht Club (USA) – Victories in 1987, 1988, and 1992.
4. Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (New Zealand) – Multiple wins starting in 1995.
5. Société Nautique de Genève (Switzerland) – Wins in 2003 and 2007.
6. Golden Gate Yacht Club (USA) – Victories in 2010 and 2013! 

I’m fortunate to serve as the commodore of the GGYC. We got to meet the teams on the docks and watch the races from behind the scenes. I’m excited to take clients and friends to the races in New York City June 7 and 8.

At the office

We’re busy with lots of developments, including a UI upgrade for Backshop that we should finish in a few weeks. We’re scheduling client meetings to gather their lists of enhancements, then we’ll plan the second-half-of-2025 roadmap.

All good things.

Have fun out there,

Jim

Sail down for team Australia:

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About CMBS.com

Founded in 2000, CMBS.com provides commercial real estate valuation, pipeline, loan origination, asset management, and securitization management software. The firm’s flagship platform, Backshop, is the leading CRE loan origination, management and servicing platform supporting a range of CRE market participants. CMBS.com is also an authorized third-party data provider to the CMBS industry.

Contact

Jim Flaherty
Founder & CEO, Backshop
jim@cmbs.com

CMBS.com has a new office in Manhattan

At the end of last year, we signed a lease for office space in downtown Manhattan at 40 Exchange Place, which is one block south of Wall Street and kitty corner from the NYSE.

We acquired Closer last fall. Last week I visited the team at 40 Exchange Place, where they had their original office. It’s super exciting to have a physical presence where many of our customers are located. As we continue to merge the Backshop and Closer teams, our clients will get much more in-person attention.

Come see us in suite 401.

Having an office in Manhattan has been a dream of mine since moving from Detroit to Connecticut as a 9th grader. We used to take Metro North and roam Manhattan in high school. I lived on the upper west side in 1995, so I know and love the city, and it feels great to be back.

A giddy start to 2025

In mid January I attended CREFC Miami. The mood was almost giddy. Most everyone thought this year would finally be the start of the recovery we’ve been waiting for. The mantra has been “survive until 2025.” Folks are ready for a good year.

At the end of January, we brought our entire 30-member Backshop/Closer team together in San Francisco to plan the merging of our two companies and apps into one killer team and app. The free flow of ideas was super exciting. More to come on that.

In February I went to the MBA Commercial/Multifamily Finance Convention and Expo in San Diego. While it was more subdued than CREFC, the vibe was positive, and most people believed that 2025 will be solid.

I just returned from the CREFC High Yield, Distressed Asset and Servicing Conference held at the New York Athletic Club. The main takeaway: For those expecting a wave of distress in CRE, that is likely not going to happen. Instead, the prediction is a slow deleveraging process that will play out over the next several years as each asset gets recapitalized (or not) and absorbed by the market. This is based on the big caveat that interest rates and geopolitical events stay sane.

These conferences usually set the tone for the year so, if history holds true, we can expect at least a decent year in CRE finance.

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About CMBS.com

Founded in 2000, CMBS.com provides commercial real estate valuation, pipeline, loan origination, asset management, and securitization management software. The firm’s flagship platform, Backshop, is the leading CRE loan origination, management and servicing platform supporting a range of CRE market participants. CMBS.com is also an authorized third-party data provider to the CMBS industry.

Contact

Jim Flaherty
Founder & CEO, Backshop
jim@cmbs.com

CREtech Los Angeles

Last week we spread the word and met some new people at #CREtech in Los Angeles. While we are well known in CRE debt circles, we are not yet well known on the equity side of the business — and these events are attended by equity players.

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Not Fade Away

I always pause to remember and honor the victims of 9/11, and I try to reflect and celebrate the spirit of camaraderie and selflessness that grew in the country after the attacks.

I’ll be posting later in the week from Los Angeles, where we’ll be exhibiting at the CREtech conference. But for now, in the spirit of post 9/11 unity, check out what Bob Weir said on Mount Tamalpais this weekend about not letting your love fade away.

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Feds issue risk retention rules

After more than two years of silence, federal regulators have begun issuing the final rules for securitization reform called for under Dodd Frank. This week, they issued the rules on risk retention.

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Re-activating C-MISMO as chairman of the board

Well, I was re-elected to another two-year term to serve on the board of governors of the Commercial Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (C-MISMO), on which I have served since 2008.

What’s new this year: I was elected chairman of the board, succeeding Jim Cooke who held that position admirably. As I look forward to two upcoming conferences, I am excited to get C-MISMO moving on existing and new standards.

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CREFC cautious about 2012

The big annual CMBS conference was held last week in Washington, DC — and the mood was cautious.

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MISMO Summit and ICSC RECon convention

I’m fresh back from a pair of industry get-togethers. C-MISMO is floundering; retail seems to be recovering.

MISMO Summit

Last week I was in Chicago at the MBA’s annual Commercial Servicing and Technology Conference, where we hosted a MISMO summit in an effort to promote the adoption of industry standards. The meeting was fairly well attended with about 40 people from several of the major servicers, lenders and service providers.

There were no “breakthroughs,” and the whole session seemed like more of an explanation why standards were not being adopted as opposed to a renewed commitment to make standard adoption a priority. More specifically:

1. Participants seemed to understand the value of standards in the abstract, but few had real-life experience with using standards to become more efficient.

2. There seemed to be more value given to the C-MISMO data dictionary than the XML schema itself, especially from the business people in the room.

3. Of the 40 or so attendees in the room, only four companies were current MISMO subscribers. No attendees that were not already MISMO subscribers offered to join MISMO or contribute additional time or funding to the standards effort.

4. The MBA and MERS signaled for the first time that if membership and funding do not improve, it will consider shutting down the C-MISMO effort.

Where do we go from here?

The summit ended with the moderators asking the question of where we go from here. After debate on whether we were really making progress, there seemed to be two choices:

1. Reorient/rebrand MISMO to focus on the common vocabulary (Logical Data Dictionary) and educate/support industry and regulators to help them implement or accept MISMO and de-emphasize XML and technology.

2. Consider putting Commercial MISMO in some type of hibernation status.

The Commercial Governance Committee has been tasked with making a recommendation on next steps. If the recommendation is to move forward, we will have to present a budget and obtain commitments from firms willing to pay subscription rates that equal the costs of running C-MISMO. While we on governance are eternally optimistic and are inclined to push ahead, it is becoming clear that, if we cannot find the financial support from the industry, the MBA is likely to pull the plug on the C-MISMO effort. Stay tuned. …

ICSC RECon convention

This week I was in Vegas for a trade show put on by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). RECon is the biggest annual conference in the real estate industry. ICSC is so big because it attracts retail property owners and all the different groups selling to these companies. Attendance was about 30,000 people with about 1,000 exhibitors including leasing brokers, tenants, lenders and service providers. Seeing the various wings of the Las Vegas Convention Center filled with 1,000 exhibitor booths was impressive.

The mood and general activity was more upbeat than the last few years, but still way off the peak. I had an interesting conversation with a person at the bar at my hotel (stayed at the Cosmopolitan which I recommend) who used to be a mortgage broker but switched to being a solar systems salesperson during the downturn. Instead of selling debt to property owners, he was now selling solar energy systems, and he was exhibiting at the show. An example of the lasting effects the financial crisis has had on individual careers and how the industry has changed. Nonetheless, the mood seemed to be more “normal” than “distressed” and the retail recovery seemed well on its way.

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Jim Flaherty is CEO of CMBS.com and the creator of the Backshop loan origination system. He is a trained credit professional with experience installing enterprise underwriting systems for commercial real estate lenders, rating agencies and investors.

www.cmbs.com

www.backshop.com