The quick read: We found no public, dated page that publishes conduit CMBS minimums by property type; what is published is what issued loans carried. Commercial Observer reported on September 21, 2026 that conduit LTV ran 62 percent on multifamily, 49.5 percent on office and 47.8 percent on retail, with office DSCR at 1.94x and debt yields of 22.4 percent on hotels and 20.3 percent on retail. Treat those as the market's recent answer, not as the line a lender sizes to.
This page covers leverage and coverage by property type. For how a conduit loan works as a product, see CMBS loans and the CMBS glossary entry.
What LTV, DSCR and debt yield do CMBS loans carry by property type in 2026?
Conduit CMBS loans reported in September 2026 carried 62 percent LTV on multifamily, 49.5 percent on office and 47.8 percent on retail, with a 55.6 percent blended LTV, according to Commercial Observer. Hotels showed the highest debt yield, 22.4 percent, and office DSCR was 1.94x. These figures describe loans that closed, not lender minimums.
Two dated reports in the same publication supply the figures in Table 1. The September 21, 2026 report compares conduit loans with a year earlier. The April 27, 2026 report covers approximately 3,700 recently originated CMBS loans totalling $94.7 billion and gives balance-weighted debt yields for each property type.
Table 1: CMBS loan metrics by property type (Commercial Observer, reported September 21, 2026 and April 27, 2026)
| Property type | Conduit LTV (Sept 21, 2026) | Conduit DSCR (Sept 21, 2026) | Conduit debt yield (Sept 21, 2026) | Debt yield, recently originated CMBS (Apr 27, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multifamily | 62%, up 2.2 points | Not stated | Dropped slightly; no figure given | 8.87% |
| Office | 49.5%, up 3.3 points | 1.94x, down more than 0.2x | Ticked up; no figure given | 15.75% |
| Retail | 47.8%, down 10.2 points | Up; no figure given | 20.3%, up 8.1 points | 12.51% |
| Industrial | Down; 6 to 10 points given as a range with self-storage | Up; no figure given | Up; no figure given | 12.01% |
| Self-storage | Down; 6 to 10 points given as a range with industrial | Up; no figure given | Up; no figure given | 11.88% |
| Hotel | Eased; no figure given | Not stated | 22.4%, highest of any category | 14.3% |
| All property types | 55.6% blended, flat year over year | Not stated | Not stated | 10.3% weighted average |
Data window: conduit loans compared with a year earlier (September report); recently originated loans (April report). Loan count and issuer mix: approximately 3,700 loans in the April report; not stated in the September report. What these are not: lender minimums, quotes, or a forecast for your loan.
The two debt-yield columns do not match, and neither report reconciles them: they come from different loan sets published five months apart. Retail reads 20.3 percent in the conduit September report and 12.51 percent in the April set. The April report says its dataset spans conduit and agency underwriting and that the multifamily figure reflects "agency-dominant execution," so that row is not a conduit-only number. The September report itself warns that its flat blended LTV is "an artifact of mix, not stability," so read every row as a snapshot of what got financed.
Why can't you find a published CMBS minimum for each property type?
We found no dated, public page that states a CMBS minimum LTV, DSCR or debt yield for each property type; the reports we found describe what closed conduit loans carried, and rating-agency criteria documents we tried to read were not publicly accessible, so ask each lender for its limits in writing.
A conduit lender packages loans into a trust, and the trust issues securities in tranches. The Corporate Finance Institute's CMBS guide (January 9, 2025) explains that senior tranches often receive AAA or AA ratings while subordinate tranches carry BBB or below.
Without a published floor, the evidence is the pattern in closed loans: the April 27, 2026 report lists implied cap rates of 8.19 percent on hotels and 5.27 percent on multifamily, and hotels also carry the highest conduit debt yield in the September report.
Why can debt yield become the binding test on a CMBS loan?
Debt yield can become the binding test on a CMBS loan because it divides underwritten net operating income by the loan amount and ignores the interest rate, the amortization and the appraised value, so on low cap rate properties it can cap proceeds even when the LTV and DSCR tests would allow a larger loan.
Commercial Observer's April 27, 2026 report defines debt yield as "underwritten net operating income (NOI) divided by loan balance" and calls it "the most critical cushion metric for CMBS bondholders because it normalizes for interest rate volatility." The same report says interest rates exceed implied cap rates for multifamily, industrial, retail and self-storage, which is negative leverage. When a property's cap rate is low, its value is high relative to its income, so an LTV test on that value allows more loan than the income can comfortably carry. Debt yield closes that gap.
The coverage test is the other pressure point. In a November 14, 2023 Commercial Observer report, an institutional lender's executive said loans in its 2021 core lending strategy typically involved minimum debt yields of 7 to 8 percent depending on property type, and that in late 2023 its DSCR was around 1.25x on 30-year amortization for industrial and multifamily loans, which, according to the executive, translates into a 9.5 to 10 percent debt yield. The same executive said "LTV is not typically coming into play given where actual debt service coverage is." That is one institutional lender's 2023 view, not a conduit rule, but the arithmetic applies to any lender running all three tests.
How do the three tests size the same property differently?
The three tests size the same property differently because each one reads a different input: LTV reads appraised value, debt yield reads net operating income alone, and DSCR reads income against the payment at the note rate. Whichever produces the smallest loan wins, and the cap rate and interest rate decide which one that is.
Illustrative (our arithmetic): the test levels below are hypothetical, chosen to show the mechanics, and are not a published requirement of any lender. Illustrative test levels: 60 percent LTV, 10 percent debt yield, 1.25x DSCR on 30-year amortization. Illustrative income: $1,000,000 of underwritten net operating income on every deal.
Table 2: Which test binds on three illustrative deals (our arithmetic)
| Deal (illustrative) | Value and cap rate | Note rate | 60% LTV | 10% debt yield | 1.25x DSCR, 30-year amortization | Binding test and maximum loan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deal A: low cap rate | $20,000,000 at 5.00% | 6.00% | $12,000,000 | $10,000,000 | About $11,120,000 | Debt yield: $10,000,000 |
| Deal B: higher cap rate | $16,000,000 at 6.25% | 6.00% | $9,600,000 | $10,000,000 | About $11,120,000 | LTV: $9,600,000 |
| Deal C: low cap rate, higher rate | $20,000,000 at 5.00% | 7.50% | $12,000,000 | $10,000,000 | About $9,530,000 | DSCR: about $9,530,000 |
Illustrative (our arithmetic): at these test levels, debt yield binds over LTV whenever the cap rate is below the debt yield multiplied by the LTV, here 10 percent times 60 percent, or 6.00 percent. Deal A sits below that line, so income, not value, sets the loan. Deal B sits above it, so value does. Deal C shows the rate effect: the same property as Deal A, at a 7.50 percent note rate, lets the coverage test cut the loan below both others.
Map that back to the April 27, 2026 report. Multifamily shows the lowest implied cap rate in that report, 5.27 percent, and the lowest debt yield, 8.87 percent. Illustrative (our arithmetic): at the test levels above, a 5.27 percent cap rate sits below the 6.00 percent line, so debt yield, not the appraisal, would set proceeds; a hotel at the report's 8.19 percent implied cap rate sits above it, so LTV would.
What should you ask a CMBS lender about your property type?
Ask a CMBS lender for its maximum LTV, minimum DSCR, minimum debt yield and the amortization and rate it sizes on, in writing, for your specific property type, because we found no public table stating those limits and the recent loan averages above describe closed deals rather than the cut-off your file must clear.
Multifamily: Is proceeds sizing set by debt yield or by DSCR at your quoted rate, and on in-place or underwritten income? Office: How is rollover and tenant-improvement exposure deducted from underwritten net operating income before the tests run? Retail: Which tenant sales, lease terms or anchor rights change the debt yield the lender needs? Industrial and self-storage: Is the published range of recent leverage moves reflected in the lender's own current limit, and on which income period? Hotel: Is income underwritten on a trailing period, and does the lender size on a debt yield rather than value?
Loan size is a separate screen from leverage, and whether a conduit lender will take a small balance is its own question, covered in a separate guide.
How do you get CMBS lenders competing on your loan?
You get CMBS lenders competing on your loan by sending every lender the same complete file at once, including the trailing income statements, rent roll or operating history, appraisal and requested proceeds, so each lender runs its LTV, DSCR and debt yield tests on identical numbers and the binding limits can be compared side by side.
YieldStack is a commercial mortgage brokerage, not a lender. It costs Zero upfront to submit a deal and review offers; YieldStack's broker fee is 0.50–1.00% of the loan amount and is paid only at closing. Every credit decision is made by the lender; YieldStack arranges the introductions and negotiates on the borrower's side, and no loan, rate, or closing is guaranteed.
Ask each lender to show all three test results, not only the one it headlines. Submit your CMBS deal to see how lenders size it on each test.
The bottom line
No public, dated source we found states conduit CMBS minimums by property type. The dated evidence is what closed: 62 percent LTV on multifamily, 49.5 percent on office and 47.8 percent on retail in Commercial Observer's September 21, 2026 report, a 1.94x office DSCR, and hotel debt yields at 22.4 percent. In our illustrative arithmetic, debt yield or DSCR sets proceeds before LTV on low cap rate properties, so ask every lender for all three results in writing.