Commercial Real Estate Credit —
Knoxville, TN
The state of disclosed CRE credit in this market · NH, TN
The read
$248M of CMBS across 18 loans. The heaviest maturity load lands in 2029 ($77M, 31% of the book). Distress is flat in the filed record — 0.0% as of 2026-07. 8 on-the-ground distress events in the past year (425 jobs).
Overview
CMBS
Submarkets
Local Banks
Jobs & Demand
On The Ground
Loading map…
The CMBS properties our stress model flags here, plus recent store closures and layoffs. Stressed is a wider net than distressed — the distressed figure above counts only loans already in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent, while these dots also include performing loans facing maturity or coverage pressure. Property dots sit at the center of their ZIP code, not the building — they show where stress concentrates, not which asset. Closures and layoffs are pinned to address where we have it. Open any dot to the building and the loan behind it →
CMBS Distressed UPB
under $1M / 0.0%
in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent
CMBS Maturing ≤ 24mo
$16M
Local Banks (stressed)
1 / 6
Bank Early-Warning
1 flagged
Store Closures (1y)
4
Layoff Notices (1y)
4 / 425 jobs
0.12% of metro employment
CMBS Loans / UPB
18 / $248M
Unemployment · Jul 2026
3.2%
-0.4pp yr
How much CRE distress is there in Knoxville, TN right now?
Knoxville, TN shows a mixed stress picture. Two of four signals read elevated: store closures at 7 closures (1.93 per 100k jobs, ranked 58th of 392 by count, 180th by rate) and bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line at $551.0mm (4.19% of CRE lent, ranked 57th of 393 by count, 168th by rate). The other two, layoff notices at 4 notices (0.09% of employment) and securitized loans in special servicing at 0 rows (0.0%), are quiet. Among the six possible pairings, four disagree—notably, closures hot with WARN quiet points to small-operator failures below the filing floor, while bank stress with no employment event suggests lender distress on a book the tape can't see. CMBS coverage is limited to $238.0mm of securitized balance, and the bank allocation caveat notes only 17.7% of dollars sit at single-metro lenders, so broader CRE stress is likely real but concentrated in unsecuritized retail and bank-held assets.
The figures behind this answer
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
7 closures | 1.93 per 100k jobs | 58 of 392 | 180 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
4 notices | 0.09% | 113 of 386 | 174 of 386 | quiet 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 |
$551.0mm | 4.19% | 57 of 393 | 168 of 393 | elevated
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
0 loan records | 0% | 220 of 335 | 220 of 335 | quiet 2026-07-29
|
6 pairs compared
1 both elevated
1 both quiet
4 disagreeing
0 unreadable — a side is blind
2 of four legs elevated
one metro, four independent feeds, each on its own denominator
{'coverage': "114 of 441 metros have at least one blind leg and 48 are blind on all four. Those 48 are the same metros the board's map cannot place and the metro resolver cannot name: one ZIP-to-CBSA crosswalk boundary, showing up three ways.", 'a_count_ranks_by_size': 'Elevation is computed on the COUNT, over a flat threshold, which is a size filter. New York is 2nd of 392 by store closures and 264th of the same 392 by closures per job — both true, and which one you lead with decides what the reader believes. Every leg carries both ranks over ONE population; quote the rate beside the count.', 'disagreement_is_not_severity': 'Where two legs disagree, that is usually a fact about WHICH mechanism is running, not an error in either feed and not a worse metro. The six pairs read different populations, and each note is a STRUCTURAL prior about those populations — nothing here measures a lead or a lag between two legs, so never report one as timing.', 'a_blind_leg_is_not_a_quiet_one': "A leg with no denominator, or whose numerator cannot be measured, reads LOW and means nothing. Each leg publishes a measurement state (allocated, floor, measured, no denominator, no rate, not measurable) for that reason. Never report a blind leg as 'no distress'."}
{'leg': 'closures', 'unit': 'jobs', 'as_of': 'trailing 365 days to today', 'value': 363352, 'measures': 'store closures', 'available': True, 'as_of_kind': 'window', 'what_it_is': "all metro jobs, QCEW annual average — a SIZE normaliser, not a matched population: the feed spans retail, food service and pharmacy and no single QCEW sector covers it. The MATCHED read sits beside it as this leg's second reading"}
{'leg': 'warn', 'unit': 'employed', 'as_of': 'trailing 365 days to today', 'value': 450136, 'measures': 'layoff notices (WARN)', 'available': True, 'as_of_kind': 'window', 'what_it_is': 'employed persons, BLS LAUS, not seasonally adjusted'}
{'leg': 'bank', 'unit': '$mm', 'as_of': '2026-03-31', 'value': 13143.2, 'measures': 'bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line', 'available': True, 'as_of_kind': 'stamp', 'what_it_is': 'bank CRE allocated to this metro by branch deposits'}
{'leg': 'cmbs', 'unit': '$mm', 'as_of': '2026-07-29', 'value': 238.0, 'measures': 'securitized loans in special servicing', 'available': True, 'as_of_kind': 'stamp', 'what_it_is': "current balance on the non-pari-passu rows of this tape — the trust's slice, not the whole loan, on both sides of the ratio"}
Written from the figures above · CBSA 28940 · stress_metro · last changed 28 Aug 2026
· Ask your own question →
Which distress signals are elevated in Knoxville, TN, and which cannot be read?
In Knoxville, TN, the elevated distress signals are bank_distressed_cre and closures, reflected in a distressed-lender CRE figure of $551.0mm and 7 store closures over the past year. The bank-CRE-at-risk reading is elevated at 51.2% (90th percentile), alongside a bank CRE allocation of 17.7% of $13.14bn. The CMBS special-servicing reading is unavailable as a distress signal—it is effectively nil at $0.0mm (0.0% of metro UPB), and the distressed-bank asset reading is 2.7 (one bank). The overall phase is "early," with materiality "modest," meaning the ground is wobbling via real-economy closures but CRE-credit distress has not yet materialized as a credit event.
The figures behind this answer
- CMBS in special servicing
- $0.0mm
- … as a share of this metro's CMBS balance
- 0.0%
- Bank CRE lent into this metro
- $13.14bn
- … at risk at the 90th percentile
- 51.2%
- CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line
- $551.0mm
- Assets at those lenders
- $2.70bn
- … share needing no branch-deposit allocation
- 17.7%
- Signals reading elevated
- bank CRE over the noncurrent line, store closures
- Legs agreeing
- 2
- Phase
- early
- CMBS loans in special servicing
- 0
- Distressed banks
- 1
- Store closures (past year)
- 7
- WARN notices (past year)
- 4
the ground is deteriorating but CRE credit has not yet been hit — the leading edge
tens of millions of distressed CRE exposure
the ground is wobbling (closures / layoffs) but little CRE-credit distress sits behind it yet — a real-economy signal, not (yet) a CRE-credit event
Written from the figures above · CBSA 28940 · geo_metro_signals · last changed 27 Aug 2026
· Ask your own question →
Jobs & Demand — the labor market under the collateralWatch it change →
Every other zone on this page reads the credit — what the loan is doing.
This one reads the demand underneath it. Office jobs pay office rent;
office rent services the office loan. When the jobs go, the DSCR follows — but not for another year or two.
That lag is the whole point of looking here.
Unemployment · Jul 2026
3.2%
-0.4pp yr
Last 24 months
2.7%3.6%
Monthly metro unemployment (BLS LAUS) — the freshest labor signal there is,
about six weeks behind. Read the direction, not the level: a 4% metro that is rising and a 6% metro that is
falling are not telling you the same thing.
Jobs by CRE-relevant sector · 2024
Annual employment by sector (BLS QCEW, 2024; 363,352 jobs in the metro).
QCEW lags — it is the structural read, not the current one, and we pair it with the monthly unemployment above on purpose.
Office-using sums five supersectors; where BLS withholds any one of them for
disclosure, we show nothing rather than a number we know is too low — so a missing sector here means
“suppressed at the source,” not “zero.”
Sector Heat — CMBS distress rate by property type (metro vs national)See the loans behind the bar →
Too few CMBS loans here (18) to say whether this metro's rate is explained by its property mix — that comparison needs 25.
No CMBS sector data for this metro.
Maturity Wall — CMBS coming due by year, distress within eachSee what’s maturing →
$16M — 6% of the metro's balance — matures within two years; the red slice of each bar is already distressed.
Distress Trend — is this market turning?Track it quarter by quarter →
Realized distress is FLAT — 0.0% now (2026-07), +0.0pp over the year.
Same definition as the cards above — distressed means in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent, dollar-weighted — on a different clock. The cards are today’s tape; this is the disclosed history panel, quarter by quarter, so you can read direction rather than level. Trusts file monthly, so a quarter is usually well covered within weeks of opening and the newest one shown is normally the current one; it is withheld only when its filed book falls below 60% of recent quarters.
Share of the metro’s CMBS in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent, by quarter — a firmer, backward-looking read. A loan under 1.0x DSCR that is still paying is not counted here.
Submarket Heat — where in the metro the distress sitsOpen the submarket →
The top three submarkets hold $248M of the metro's $248M; each bar's colored share is its distress rate.
Bank Door — what the local bank sector could absorbSee it on every loan’s exit read →
$16M of CMBS matures here within two years.
The 24 regional and local banks that gather deposits here could write roughly
$441M more CRE before the 300% supervisory line, so the maturing balance is
0.04× that room.
The median metro sits at 0.12×.
Regional Bank Room
$441M
After Committed Draws
$142M / −68%
Maturing ÷ Room
0.04×
Banks In Footprint
24 / 6 at the line
The room above is already part-sold. Construction lending is a promise drawn
down over two or three years, and the undrawn part is an obligation the bank cannot decline while the borrower performs
— every one of those dollars lands in the same CRE book the 300% line governs. These banks
have $514M of construction committed and not yet
advanced, of which $299M
comes out of the room above, leaving $142M,
with 15 banks
whose entire remaining room is spoken for.
A bank with no room contributes zero here, never a negative one — capacity does not net
across balance sheets — so $216M of what has
been promised is not deducted at all, because there is nothing left to deduct it from. On today’s
capital that is funding already contracted which would cross the line as it draws.
SR 06-26 draws a second line at 100% of capital for construction and land:
5 of 24
are past it on drawn balances alone, and
13 more cross it
once their own commitments fund.
Counted — 24 regional & local CRE lenders
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southeast Bank TN | 50.4% | 231% total 294%
|
🔒 | 0.08% |
| Cbbc Bank TN | 100.0% | 204% total 262%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Community Trust Bank, Inc. KY | 4.2% | 165% total 206%
|
🔒 | 0.39% |
| Firstbank TN | 6.9% | 269% total 386%
|
🔒 | 0.97% |
| Tnbank TN | 100.0% | 201% total 331%
|
🔒 | 0.93% |
| One Bank Of Tennessee TN | 10.4% | 181% total 345%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Century Bank TN | 38.0% | 237% total 371%
|
🔒 | 0.05% |
| Ubank TN | 100.0% | 223% total 328%
|
🔒 | 1.14% |
| Hearthside Bank Corporation KY | 10.9% | 148% total 237%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| Smartbank TN | 17.2% | 290% total 461%
|
🔒 | 0.10% |
| United Cumberland Bank KY | 10.9% | 128% total 206%
|
🔒 | 0.93% |
| The First National Bank Of Oneida TN | 8.1% | 149% total 214%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Peoples Bank Of The South TN | 100.0% | 284% total 335%
|
🔒 | 0.52% |
| First Us Bank AL | 8.5% | 249% total 296%
|
🔒 | 0.09% |
| Peoples Bank Of East Tennessee TN | 9.8% | 206% total 274%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| First Financial Bank, National Association IN | 1.6% | 264% total 283%
|
🔒 | 0.81% |
| Southern Bank Of Tennessee TN | 19.0% | 274% total 380%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Peoples Bank Of Tennessee TN | 23.2% | 295% total 360%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Citizens Bank TN | 21.6% | 305% total 446%
|
🔒 | 1.03% |
| Commercial Bank TN | 12.0% | 307% total 480%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Builtwell Bank TN | 10.3% | 304% total 448%
|
🔒 | 0.34% |
| Tennessee State Bank TN | 7.9% | 347% total 398%
|
🔒 | 0.03% |
| Bank Of Tennessee TN | 6.4% | 375% total 484%
|
🔒 | 0.28% |
| Citizens National Bank TN | 2.9% | 331% total 422%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
Not counted — 17 banks with deposits here
These hold deposits in this metro but are left out of the capacity above, because for them deposit location stops indicating where they lend — or they do not lend CRE at all. Real money that could refinance here is deliberately not counted.
no CRE book — CRE under 100% of capital — not a CRE lender
Truist Bank NC · Regions Bank AL · Home Federal Bank Of Tennessee TN · Bank Of America, National Association NC · U.s. Bank National Association OH · Fifth Third Bank, National Association OH · Citizens Bank And Trust Company Of Grainger County TN · First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company NC · Jpmorgan Chase Bank, National Association OH · Apex Bank TN · Fsnb, National Association OK
national — operates in more than 5 states, so deposits stop indicating where it lends
First Horizon Bank TN · Pinnacle Bank TN · United Community Bank SC · Renasant Bank MS · Old National Bank IN · Simmons Bank AR
* Two ratios, two perimeters.
The large figure is supervisory CRE over total risk-based capital —
construction, multifamily and non-owner-occupied nonfarm nonresidential. That is the book SR 06-26 draws its
300% line against, and it is what the red coloring and the room contributed are both measured on.
Total beneath it adds owner-occupied CRE — lending to a business on
its own premises — which the guidance deliberately leaves out. A bank can sit well above 300% on total CRE and
still be inside the line, with real room to lend; both are shown so the gap is visible rather than surprising.
How to read this. It is not whether any particular loan can refinance — a borrower also reaches
national banks, life companies, agencies and debt funds. It is how much of this metro’s maturing volume the local
bank sector could absorb if it were the only door.
Banks are placed by deposit share (FDIC Summary of Deposits, June 2025) — a proxy for
where they lend, not a measurement; call reports carry no collateral geography. Room = 3× total risk-based capital less CRE held
(SR 06-26, the capital base the rule names — not book equity), from Q2 2026 call reports, apportioned by that share.
Committed construction comes from FFIEC Schedule RC-L as filed at 2026-06-30 —
the undrawn half of loans already written, which the balance sheet above does not show.
Banks in more than 5 states, single-branch bookers and banks that do not lend CRE are excluded —
313 banks holding $268.2B of national capacity not counted here.
Local Lenders — banks headquartered here, worst CRE noncurrent firstUnlock each bank’s early-warning flag →
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Federal Bank Of Tennessee | $584M | 95% total 125%
|
8.84% | 🔒 |
| Peoples Bank Of The South | $102M | 284% total 335%
|
0.52% | 🔒 |
| Ubank | $79M | 223% total 328%
|
1.14% | 🔒 |
| Tnbank | $118M | 201% total 331%
|
0.93% | 🔒 |
| Southeast Bank | $953M | 231% total 294%
|
0.08% | 🔒 |
| Cbbc Bank | $230M | 204% total 262%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
* Two ratios, two perimeters.
The large figure is supervisory CRE over total risk-based capital —
construction, multifamily and non-owner-occupied nonfarm nonresidential. That is the book SR 06-26 draws its
300% line against, and it is what the red coloring and the room contributed are both measured on.
Total beneath it adds owner-occupied CRE — lending to a business on
its own premises — which the guidance deliberately leaves out. A bank can sit well above 300% on total CRE and
still be inside the line, with real room to lend; both are shown so the gap is visible rather than surprising.
Banks are matched to their HQ metro (a proxy for footprint). Noncurrent CRE = CRE-balance-weighted blend of multifamily / nonresidential / construction noncurrent (distress already arrived). Early Warning is a validated leading signal — the bank’s 30-89 early-delinquency rank among all CRE lenders this quarter, which has predicted ~2.3× forward CRE distress. Per-bank flags are on a plan.
Do the banks lending in Knoxville, TN have the capacity to refinance its maturing CRE?
Knoxville's banks look amply able to absorb what is maturing: the wall-to-room ratio sits at 0.11, and wall_to_room_vs_median reads 0.11 is BELOW the median of 0.20, so this metro is LESS strained than the typical ranked metro. The maturity load itself is small at maturing_bal_mm of $15.9mm across 3 maturing_loans, set against room_after_committed of $142.0mm and room_before_committed of $440.6mm from banks_qualifying of 24 institutions. On the available readings, this does not present a refinancing capacity problem, though the caveats note that room_is_a_proxy and wall_is_cmbs_only.
The figures behind this answer
- CMBS maturing in the window
- $15.9mm
- … across this many loans
- 3
- Local bank room, before committed draws
- $440.6mm
- Committed construction draws
- $514.4mm
- Local bank room, after those draws
- $142.0mm
- Wall-to-room ratio
- 0.11
- Rank, most strained
- 184
- … out of this many metros ranked
- 270
- … before committed draws
- 0.04
- Population ranked against
- CMBS maturing within 24 months against regional/community bank room in this metro
- Qualifying local banks
- 24
- … excluded from the calculation
- 6
- Distressed share of this metro's CMBS
- 0.0%
- Total CMBS balance here
- $247.6mm
- Capacity band
- slack
Compared against a median wall-to-room ratio of
0.20 across the ranked metros.
0.11 is BELOW the median of 0.20, so this metro is LESS strained than the typical ranked metro
184 of 270, counting from the MOST strained — a LOWER rank number means MORE strain
{'room_is_a_proxy': 'Room is what regional and community banks could still write before the SR 06-26 concentration line, after deducting construction draws already committed. Deposit footprint is a proxy for lending footprint, not a measurement of it.', 'ratio_is_not_size': 'The most extreme ratios belong to the smallest metros. Read maturing_bal_mm beside the ratio — the map sizes bubbles by the wall, not the strain, for exactly this reason.', 'wall_is_cmbs_only': "The wall is the CMBS balance maturing within 24 months — the maturing debt this platform can see, not the metro's whole maturity load. Every ratio is an upper bound on how much of it local banks would have to absorb.", 'exclusion_artifact': 'A high ratio is as often an exclusion artifact as a credit event. Banks whose deposits do not indicate where they lend (nationals, card and charter banks) are excluded from the room, so a metro served mainly by those reads strained while its credit is simply invisible here. Check banks_qualifying against banks_excluded_here, and explained_by_exclusion.'}
Written from the figures above · CBSA 28940 · capacity_metro · last changed 13 Sep 2026
· Ask your own question →
On The Ground — recent closures, layoffs & CRE bankruptciesTie these events to loans →
8 local distress events in the past year (425 jobs) — store closures, layoffs, and commercial real estate bankruptcies near this metro's collateral.
2026-07-25
CLOSURE
Knoxville
2026-07-14
CLOSURE
Lenoir City
2026-03-24
LAYOFF
85 jobs · Blount County
2026-03-02
LAYOFF
54 jobs · Knox County
2026-02-15
CLOSURE
Oak Ridge
2026-02-03
LAYOFF
154 jobs · Knox County
2025-12-31
CLOSURE
Knoxville
2025-11-14
LAYOFF
132 jobs · Knox County
2025-09-07
CLOSURE
Knoxville
2025-09-07
CLOSURE
Knoxville
2025-08-19
LAYOFF
24 jobs · Campbell County
2025-08-06
CLOSURE
Knoxville
2025-08-06
CLOSURE
Knoxville
2025-06-24
LAYOFF
153 jobs · Campbell County
2024-10-31
CLOSURE
Knoxville
What has actually happened on the ground in Knoxville, TN recently?
Over the trailing 365 days, Knoxville, TN has recorded 4 store closures and 4 warn notices, with 425 jobs affected. CRE bankruptcies stand at 0, though that figure 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. Note that the jobs figure is a floor: affected_employees is nullable — notices that state no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs, so this is a floor.
The figures behind this answer
- Store closures
- 4
- WARN layoff notices
- 4
- Jobs on those notices
- 425
- CRE-related bankruptcies
- 0
- Window, in days
- 365
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.
affected_employees is nullable — notices that state no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs, so this is a floor.
Closures are matched ZIP -> CBSA and only APPROVED rows count (a pending, machine-extracted row is not yet a closure). This mirrors the Metro Pulse page, not the convergence board — the board applies neither filter and counts higher. Layoffs take the same ZIP -> CBSA and review treatment, and a WARN notice counts if it affects >= 10 people or does not state a headcount (a NULL is not 'fewer than 10').
Written from the figures above · CBSA 28940 · geo_events · last changed 13 Sep 2026
· Ask your own question →
What this page can’t do
Everything above is a snapshot — one market, as it stands today, and
it’s yours to read. What a snapshot can’t tell you is when it moves: which loan slipped a DSCR band
this month, which bank’s early-warning rank crossed into the top quartile, which submarket started turning
while the headline number still looked fine. Distress doesn’t announce itself on the day you happen to check.
This page
One metro · one moment · you come looking.
Verstavo
Every metro · every month · it comes looking for you.
CMBS covers the securitized slice of CRE; bank, closure and layoff signals widen the view.
“No data” in a zone means we don’t observe it here, not that there is no stress.
Employment is BLS (QCEW annual, LAUS monthly) — public data, and the demand leg under all of it.
See the whole picture, not just the pulse.
Metro Pulse is the free, public read. The Verstavo platform goes loan‑by‑loan — stress
scores, maturity walls, special‑servicing transfers, bank CRE, and your own portfolio benchmarked
against the market.