Like many of you, I’ve been wondering when the long bull market in commercial real estate finally would begin to unravel. Well, the signs of distress are all around us now. Check out the following news stories:

On Jan. 25, 2023, GlobeSt reported that the largest owner of apartments in San Francisco, a joint venture between Veritas Investments and Baupost Group, had defaulted on a $448 million CMBS loan secured by 62 properties encompassing more than 1,700 units. On Feb. 16, 2023, Commercial Observer reported that a $270.3 million CMBS loan on Blackstone’s Manhattan 11-property multifamily portfolio had been sent to special servicing. On March 8, 2023, Commercial Observer ran another story noting that in the depth of winter, Brookfield — the largest office owner in Downtown Los Angeles — defaulted on major property holdings worth a combined $784 million. “Within days,” the Observer reported, “the default