Moody's Launches Web Commercial Metrics

Moody's Investors Service has launched the Web version of its Moody's Commercial Mortgage Metrics, which was jointly released earlier this year by the rating agency and Torto Wheaton Research, a Boston-based property research company.CMM can serve as an early warning system for banks and other commercial real estate lenders when examining potential defaults and loss given default, Moody's said. The system's credit-risk metrics can also be used to more efficiently size capital allocations and price new loans. A number of different loan types (such as construction loans) are included in the new version. Also included are cross-collateralized and cross-defaulted loans, single loans on a portfolio of properties (such as a single loan on 10 buildings spread across the country), and multiple loans on a single property, Moody's said. The rating agency can be found online at http://www.moodys.com.