Augusta-Richmond County carries a modest securitized book — $305M of CMBS across 25 loans — and on paper it is pristine. The filed record shows a 0.0% distress rate as of July 2026, flat, with no loan in special servicing or 60-plus days delinquent. Median DSCR sits at a comfortable 1.72, and the metro's broader labor backdrop is firm: unemployment of 4.1% in August 2026, down 0.3 points year over year.
The maturity calendar is where attention belongs. The heaviest load lands in 2029, when $118M — 39% of the book — comes due, dwarfing the handful of smaller maturities scattered across 2028, 2030 and 2032. For now that 2029 cohort shows a 0.0% distress rate, but it concentrates the refinancing question into a single year.
Look past the clean servicer tape and the on-the-ground signal is busier. The metro logged 12 distress events over the past year — 11 layoff notices and a single store closure — touching 1,206 jobs. Among the three banks in view, one carries an early-warning flag. None of that has reached the securitized book, but it is a filed record worth watching against an otherwise quiet page.
In Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC, the four CRE stress legs read mixed: store closures sit at 1 closures, or 0.53 per 100k jobs, and bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line stands at $255.7mm, or 7.4%, while layoff notices (WARN) come in at 11 notices, or 0.45% — the only elevated leg, giving 1 legs elevated out of four. Securitized loans in special servicing is a leg that cannot be read, so that reading is unavailable rather than quiet; of 6 pairs of legs compared, 0 are pairs with both legs elevated, 1 are pairs with both legs quiet, 2 are pairs where the legs disagree, and 3 are pairs that cannot be read because a leg is blind.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
1 closures | 0.53 per 100k jobs | 284 of 392 | 325 of 392 | quiet trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
11 notices | 0.45% | 60 of 382 | 36 of 382 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line share of the CRE lent into this metro that sits at a lender over the blended-noncurrent line |
$255.7mm | 7.4% | 97 of 393 | 88 of 393 | quiet
allocated 2026-06-30
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
1 loan records | — | — | — | cannot be read
not measurable 2026-09-29
|
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Security Federal Bank SC | 85.6% | 142% total 224%
|
🔒 | 0.95% |
| Queensborough National Bank & Trust Company GA | 64.3% | 162% total 327%
|
🔒 | 0.37% |
| F&m Bank GA | 28.5% | 146% total 210%
|
🔒 | 0.59% |
| First State Bank GA | 32.0% | 182% total 290%
|
🔒 | 0.22% |
| Ameris Bank GA | 0.7% | 263% total 319%
|
🔒 | 0.12% |
| Coastal Carolina National Bank SC | 8.5% | 266% total 364%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Vallant Bank GA | 1.8% | 264% total 397%
|
🔒 | 0.71% |
| South Georgia Bank GA | 2.9% | 159% total 213%
|
🔒 | 0.24% |
| Colony Bank GA | 1.2% | 278% total 392%
|
🔒 | 0.49% |
| Southern Bank SC | 31.1% | 339% total 508%
|
🔒 | 0.02% |
| First Community Bank SC | 8.6% | 316% total 473%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Security Federal Bank | $405M | 142% total 224%
|
0.95% | 🔒 |
Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC sits in the slack capacity band: $50.5mm of CMBS maturing in the window, across 6 loans, against $287.9mm of local bank room, after those draws, giving a Wall-to-room ratio of 0.18 — and 0.10 before committed draws. That room comes from 11 qualifying local banks, with 3 excluded from the calculation, and the metro's distressed share of this metro's CMBS is 0.0%. Ranked 160 out of 275 metros ranked, most strained, it is less strained than the median metro, though the usual caveat applies: room is a proxy built on deposit footprint, and the wall is only the CMBS balance maturing within 24 months, so the ratio is an upper bound on what local banks would have to absorb.
Over the trailing 365 days in Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC, the verified record shows 1 store closure and 11 WARN notices, with 1,206 jobs affected — a figure that is a floor, since notices stating no headcount count toward the notice total but contribute no jobs. CRE-likely bankruptcy filings come to 81, though that reading is a state proxy rather than a metro-native count, so it should not be read as activity within the metro itself.