KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to 18 Classes of $805.1 Million Benchmark 2026-B44

KBRA assigned preliminary ratings to 18 classes of Benchmark 2026-B44, an $805.1 million CMBS conduit collateralized by 63 commercial mortgage loans secured by 79 properties, the agency said in a Business Wire announcement on November 3, 2026. KBRA is a credit rating agency registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as an NRSRO.

Inside the Benchmark 2026-B44 Pool

The collateral properties sit across 20 MSAs, with New York at 32.9% of the pool balance, Denver at 9.9% and Las Vegas at 8.0%. Retail is the largest property type exposure at 38.9%, followed by multifamily at 26.3% and office at 15.2%. The largest loan, Colorado Mills at 9.9%, covers a 911,906 square foot collateral portion of a 1.1 million square foot outlet center in Lakewood, Colorado, about seven miles west of the Denver CBD. The five largest loans, which also include Phoenix Industrial Portfolio XVI at 8.1%, 700 6th Street at 6.7%, OKC Outlets at 6.5% and The Falls at 6.2%, make up 37.4% of the initial pool balance, and the top 10 loans account for 56.7%.

KBRA's multi-borrower process starts with an evaluation of each property's financial and operating performance to set its estimate of sustainable net cash flow and its KBRA value. On a weighted average basis, the pool's KNCF was 13.9% below the issuer's cash flow, and KBRA values came in 37.2% below third-party appraisals. The pool has an in-trust KLTV of 76.8% and an all-in KLTV of 78.4%. The agency also applies rent and occupancy stresses, probability of default regressions and loss given default calculations to set losses for each loan.

KBRA's Recent Rating Assignments

On November 2, 2026, KBRA assigned preliminary ratings to four classes of BX 2026-AIRC, a CMBS securitization backed by a $3.34 billion floating-rate loan on 29 multifamily properties, according to FinancialContent Business Page. A day later, the agency assigned preliminary ratings to OnDeck Asset Securitization IV's Series 2026-2 notes, totaling $500.25 million and secured by a revolving pool of small business loans, the same outlet reported. KBRA also released its October 2026 CMBS loan performance research, which put U.S. Private-label CMBS delinquency at 7.7%, down 2 basis points from September, while distress rose 4 basis points to 10.3%.

Other Rating Actions Across Structured Finance

KBRA assigned preliminary ratings to five classes of notes in BHG Securitization Trust 2026-3CON, a $396.72 million asset-backed securitization of consumer loans, FinancialContent Business Page reported on October 23, 2026. The same day, the outlet reported preliminary ratings on three classes from US Signal Issuer LLC and US Signal Co-Issuer LLC Series 2026-1/2, a colocation data center ABS secured by 10 data centers. KBRA also rated 96 classes of mortgage pass-through certificates from Chase Home Lending Mortgage Trust 2026-JINV2, a prime investor RMBS pool of 327 residential mortgages with an aggregate principal balance of approximately $398.8 million. Separately, Sunway Bhd secured bondholder approval to replace MARC with RAM Rating Services as its sukuk programme's credit rating agency, The Edge Malaysia reported on October 28, 2026.