Charlotte carries $2.1 billion of CMBS across 95 loans, and the filed distress record is turning up — 3.3% as of July 2026, still a modest reading but one that has been rising. The metro remains lightly stressed against the national backdrop, with a median DSCR of 1.57 offering coverage on the performing side. The pressure is concentrated rather than broad: office is the largest book at $620 million and runs 11.3% distressed, matching the national office rate exactly. Retail, hospitality and mixed-use, by contrast, show no distress in the filed record, each sitting below its national mark.
The maturity calendar frames where the attention belongs. The heaviest load lands in 2029 at $610 million, or 29% of the book, and it enters that year carrying a 4.6% distress rate. Nearer term, the 2028 slice is smaller but hotter, printing 14.8% distressed, while the 2030 and 2032 vintages are clean. About $0.4 billion comes due inside 24 months.
On the ground, Charlotte logged 24 distress events over the past year — 15 store closures and nine layoff notices totaling 190 jobs — against a labor market that has held firm, with unemployment at 3.7% in July 2026, down half a percentage point year over year. Among the metro's 10 tracked banks, none are distressed and one sits on early-warning watch.
Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC shows a mixed distress picture: 3 of 6 signal pairs read elevated on both sides, 0 pairs read quiet on both sides, and 3 pairs disagree. Elevated readings come from store closures (12 closures, 1.02 per 100k jobs), WARN layoff notices (10 notices, 0.01% of employment), and bank CRE over the noncurrent line ($3,181.2 mm, 8.14% of allocated CRE). However, the closures and WARN legs are elevated by size, not by rate — they rank 38th and 55th of 392 and 386 metros by count, but only 266th and 228th by rate, respectively. The bank leg is genuinely elevated on rate (92nd of 393 by rate). The CMBS leg is not elevated: 2 rows in special servicing, a floor reading (1.35% of the securitized balance), so it reads quiet. The three disagreements are structural: closures hot vs. CMBS quiet suggests retail failing on buildings the tape doesn't hold; WARN hot vs. CMBS quiet suggests employers cutting while the securitized book hasn't moved; and bank hot vs. CMBS quiet means lenders here are stressed on a book the tape cannot see. Overall, distress is present and concentrated in bank credit and small-scale retail/employment stress, not in securitized or large-employer channels.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
12 closures | 1.02 per 100k jobs | 38 of 392 | 266 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
10 notices | 0.01% | 55 of 386 | 228 of 386 | 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 |
$3.18bn | 8.14% | 20 of 393 | 92 of 393 | elevated
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
2 loan records | 1.35% | 66 of 335 | 97 of 335 | quiet
floor 2026-07-29
|
In Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC, the elevated distress signals are bank distressed CRE, closures, and WARN notices. The bank distressed CRE reading is driven by $3.18bn in distressed lender CRE and a 10.5% 90th-percentile share of bank CRE at risk, with 0 distressed bank assets. Closures and WARN notices are elevated, with 12 store closures and 10 WARN notices in the past year. The CMBS special-servicing reading is modest, with $28.0mm in special-servicing UPB (a 1.3% share of metro UPB), and the stated materiality notes this is a floor because the other special-servicing rows carry no balance. Unavailable readings include the distressed-bank count (given as 0) and any specific national benchmark comparisons; the figures provided do not include a CMBS delinquency rate or a broader market distress index, so those cannot be read from this data.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Farmers & Merchants Bank NC | 96.9% | 210% total 249%
|
🔒 | 0.79% |
| Townebank VA | 6.9% | 249% total 345%
|
🔒 | 0.19% |
| Uwharrie Bank NC | 38.8% | 172% total 260%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Peoples Bank NC | 30.2% | 215% total 338%
|
🔒 | 0.16% |
| New Republic Bank NC | 85.1% | 130% total 135%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| The Fidelity Bank NC | 6.2% | 206% total 373%
|
🔒 | 0.47% |
| The Park National Bank OH | 2.1% | 197% total 270%
|
🔒 | 0.81% |
| American Bank Of The Carolinas NC | 100.0% | 216% total 307%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Blueharbor Bank NC | 97.0% | 274% total 378%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Bank NC | 4.7% | 280% total 366%
|
🔒 | 0.40% |
| Hometrust Bank NC | 3.0% | 235% total 324%
|
🔒 | 0.68% |
| Movement Bank VA | 54.7% | 203% total 353%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Oakworth Capital Bank AL | 2.9% | 190% total 305%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Ameris Bank GA | 0.6% | 263% total 319%
|
🔒 | 0.12% |
| Southern First Bank SC | 1.5% | 236% total 397%
|
🔒 | 0.23% |
| First Palmetto Bank SC | 7.4% | 266% total 409%
|
🔒 | 0.01% |
| Arthur State Bank SC | 1.7% | 175% total 303%
|
🔒 | 0.04% |
| Commercial Bank TN | 5.0% | 307% total 480%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Community Bank SC | 3.2% | 316% total 473%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Carter Bank & Trust VA | 2.9% | 395% total 423%
|
🔒 | 0.84% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Farmers & Merchants Bank | $395M | 210% total 249%
|
0.79% | 🔒 |
| Bank Of America, National Association | $79.9B | 27% total 39%
|
1.57% | 🔒 |
| Truist Bank | $51.0B | 57% total 87%
|
0.45% | 🔒 |
| Blueharbor Bank | $296M | 274% total 378%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| American Bank Of The Carolinas | $86M | 216% total 307%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
On the face of it, Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC looks strained: its wall-to-room ratio of 2.02 sits well above the median metro and ranks 32 of 270, counting from the MOST strained — a LOWER rank number means MORE strain. But the raw comparison is misleading, because the wall here is modest — $424.4mm across 26 maturing loans — against $569.9mm of room before committed draws, and the strain only appears after $529.3mm in committed construction draws are deducted, leaving just $209.9mm of room after committed. Critically, 20 banks qualify against 11 excluded here, and the exclusion is not the explanation for the reading, so the ratio is not merely an artifact of invisible lenders. Note the wall is CMBS-only, meaning it is the maturing debt this platform can see rather than the metro's whole maturity load, so 2.02 is an upper bound on how much of it local banks would have to absorb.
| REIT | SS NOI | SS Revenue | Occupancy | Rent | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPT | -1.3% | -0.8% | 95.0% | -1.1% | 2026-07-30 |
| MAA | -2.1% | -1.1% | 95.7% | -0.9% | 2026-07-29 |
Over the trailing 365 days, Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC has recorded 15 store closures and 9 warn notices, with jobs affected at 190 — a figure that is a floor, since notices stating no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs. On the bankruptcy side, the reading is 3, but this is a state proxy: bankruptcy filings carry the filer's state, not the property's location, so it counts CRE-likely filings in the states this metro's collateral sits in, and is not a metro-native count.