Comment by Cshelton

So you need to understand how the commercial real estate world works to know you can’t just “hold off on mortgage payments” for very long. Most loans backed by CRE are securitized. So they are packaged into bonds. These bonds are not just banks, they are funds. Funds that hold and generate monthly payments for millions of American’s pensions/retirement/etc. This isn’t just rich old landlords won’t get their money, it is a large number of Americans, the money will stop. Bonds will simply default from lack of loan payments. Yes, the Gov can keep it afloat for a short period, but we’re talking trillions of dollars. This is the giant elephant in the room right now that the “Main Street’ is unaware of. It could potentially be very nasty. What happens if 50 million+ Americans stopped receiving/had cut significantly their pension/retirement payments? CRE is a top asset class, one of the biggest.