Detroit carries $5.7 billion of CMBS across 272 loans, and the filed record reads calm: distress sits at 2.4% as of July 2026, flat, with a median DSCR of 1.82 across the book. Office is the biggest exposure at $1.4 billion, yet its 3.3% distress rate runs far below the 11.3% national office mark — a striking gap for a metro whose name is synonymous with white-collar retrenchment. Retail ($1.2 billion) and industrial ($0.9 billion) show no filed distress at all, against 2.7% nationally for each. Multifamily is the softer corner at 6.9%, just under the 7.6% national rate, with hospitality at 4.3%.
The timing story is a 2029 story. The heaviest maturity load lands that year at $1.5 billion — 27% of the book — and carries no filed distress today. The nearer walls are lighter but not clean: $1.1 billion comes due in 2028 at a 3.5% distress rate, with $0.6 billion in 2031 running 3.9%. That leaves the metro's largest single refinancing test still three years out.
Away from the trustee reports, the ground has been busier. The past year brought 66 on-the-ground distress events — 40 store closures and 26 layoff notices — touching 4,104 jobs, against a 6.0% unemployment rate that is up 0.4 point year over year. For now that pressure has not crossed into the filed CMBS record, where the numbers remain flat and, sector by sector, inside the national lines.
In Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI, all four tracked distress signals are elevated. Store closures sit at 39 (2.25 per 100k jobs), layoff notices at 24 (0.17% of employment), bank CRE over the noncurrent line at $9,953.2mm (33.59% of allocated CRE), and securitized loans in special servicing at 11 (2.19% of balance). All six pairwise comparisons agree on elevated readings—none disagree, none are blind—so the signal here is unanimous, not mixed. The strength is concentrated in the bank leg, which ranks 7th of 393 metros by both count and rate, while the store-closure rate rank (146th of 392) is far quieter than its count rank (11th), indicating size-driven volume rather than proportional stress.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
39 closures | 2.25 per 100k jobs | 11 of 392 | 146 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
24 notices | 0.17% | 27 of 386 | 130 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 |
$9.95bn | 33.59% | 7 of 393 | 7 of 393 | elevated
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
11 loan records | 2.19% | 16 of 335 | 91 of 335 | elevated 2026-07-29
|
Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI, is in a confirmed peak distress phase, with principal signals elevated on both the realized credit side and the leading real-economy side. On the credit front, distressed lender CRE exposure is $9.95bn (a 90th-percentile reading, with bank CRE at risk at 5.8% and a bank allocation share of 5.6%), while CMBS special servicing UPB is $124.0mm, equal to a 2.2% share of metro UPB. Ground-level signals are also firing: 24 WARN notices and 39 store closures in the past year, supported by 1 distressed bank and 11 CMBS loans in special servicing. However, the overall materiality is "modest", given only 0.3 (billion) in distressed bank assets; a bank CRE dollar value is not provided, so that absolute reading is unavailable.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Merchants Bank IN | 7.8% | 183% total 243%
|
🔒 | 0.59% |
| Oxford Bank MI | 96.4% | 136% total 341%
|
🔒 | 2.79% |
| Bank Of Ann Arbor MI | 41.3% | 212% total 294%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| Independent Bank MI | 19.3% | 174% total 287%
|
🔒 | 1.65% |
| First State Bank MI | 100.0% | 205% total 352%
|
🔒 | 0.15% |
| Choiceone Bank MI | 44.9% | 257% total 393%
|
🔒 | 0.80% |
| Tri-County Bank MI | 47.3% | 154% total 400%
|
🔒 | 1.82% |
| Superior National Bank MI | 14.9% | 130% total 195%
|
🔒 | 0.49% |
| Grasshopper Bank, N.a. NY | 26.9% | 216% total 302%
|
🔒 | 0.42% |
| Waterford Bank, N.a. OH | 17.7% | 248% total 398%
|
🔒 | 0.40% |
| Mercantile Bank MI | 2.4% | 222% total 311%
|
🔒 | 0.01% |
| Horizon Bank IN | 1.7% | 235% total 331%
|
🔒 | 0.26% |
| The Farmers & Merchants State Bank OH | 2.1% | 231% total 374%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Citizens State Bank MI | 83.4% | 291% total 591%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Northstar Bank MI | 43.1% | 298% total 548%
|
🔒 | 0.92% |
| First Community Bank MI | 3.3% | 268% total 520%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Huron Valley State Bank MI | 100.0% | 304% total 587%
|
🔒 | 2.10% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Independence Bank | $122M | 87% total 130%
|
2.50% | 🔒 |
| Oxford Bank | $407M | 136% total 341%
|
2.79% | 🔒 |
| Huron Valley State Bank | $187M | 304% total 587%
|
2.10% | 🔒 |
| First State Bank | $474M | 205% total 352%
|
0.15% | 🔒 |
| Citizens State Bank | $290M | 291% total 591%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| Mi Bank | $108M | 269% total 432%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| Community Unity Bank | $52M | 230% total 247%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
For Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI, the maturing CMBS wall within 24 months is $1.49bn across 82 loans against regional/community bank room of $1.10bn before committed draws and $659.5mm after, giving a wall-to-room ratio of 2.26 and 1.36 before committed draws — a reading that ranks 28 of 270 from the most strained, or in the tight band. The bank-side picture is a proxy built on deposit footprint, with 17 banks qualifying and 6 excluded here, so the capacity to refinance this wall looks constrained, though the reading is only the CMBS balance this platform can see and not the metro's whole maturity load. Distressed share stands at 2.5%.
Over the trailing 365 days, approved store closures in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI total 40, and WARN notices total 26 with 4,104 jobs affected; note that the jobs figure is a floor, since notices stating no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs. CRE-likely bankruptcies show as 2, but that is a STATE PROXY — bankruptcy filings carry the filer's state, not the property's location, so this counts CRE-likely filings in the states this metro's collateral sits in. It is not a metro-native count.