Memphis sits on $790M of CMBS spread across 45 loans, and the pressure point is not office but rental housing. Multifamily carries a 29.9% distress rate — the highest of any sector here, well above the 7.9% national mark and 3.8 times the national rate. For a book of this size, that is a concentration special servicers and debt funds cannot treat as noise; the metro's overall CMBS distress rate stands at 6.2%.
The refinancing calendar skews late. The heaviest maturity load lands in 2032, when $206M comes due — 26% of the entire book — with lighter towers in 2028, 2029 and 2031. Among the 13 banks with local CRE exposure, one is flagged distressed and four more sit on early-warning watch.
The on-the-ground record tells the tenant-side story the loan tape doesn't. Over the past year Memphis logged 34 distress events — 18 store closures and 16 layoff notices — totaling 2,444 jobs. Area unemployment reads 4.6% as of August 2026, up 0.1 point year over year.
In Memphis, TN-MS-AR, all four legs read elevated: 13 closures, or 2.43 per 100k jobs, alongside 16 notices, or 0.41%, on the employment side; $625.2mm of bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line, or 3.59%, on the bank book; and 5 loan records, or 15.19%, of securitized loans in special servicing on the trust side. All 6 pairs of legs compared are pairs with both legs elevated, with 0 pairs where the legs disagree, 0 pairs with both legs quiet, and 0 pairs that cannot be read because a leg is blind, giving 4 legs elevated out of four. The bank leg carries a stated caveat that only 11.7% of these dollars sit at banks that lend in one metro and need no allocation; the rest is split by branch deposits, which the call report cannot confirm, and the tape balance is the trust's slice rather than the whole loan.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
13 closures | 2.43 per 100k jobs | 40 of 392 | 155 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
16 notices | 0.41% | 44 of 382 | 43 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 |
$625.2mm | 3.59% | 54 of 393 | 179 of 393 | elevated
allocated 2026-06-30
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
5 loan records | 15.19% | 36 of 335 | 30 of 335 | elevated 2026-09-29
|
In Memphis, TN-MS-AR, the elevated distress signals are the CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line at $625.2mm, CMBS in special servicing at $120.0mm, or 15.2% of this metro's CMBS balance in special servicing, alongside store-closure and WARN activity. The bank-side picture is less stretched, with bank CRE at risk at the 90th percentile at 19.2% against $17.44bn of bank CRE lent into this metro, and the share of bank CRE needing no branch-deposit allocation at 11.7%; assets at those lenders stand at $0.60bn. The reading on bank CRE at risk at the 90th percentile's dollar equivalent is unavailable, as is any figure for legs agreeing beyond the stated 4.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evolve Bank & Trust AR | 94.7% | 101% total 154%
|
🔒 | 1.52% |
| The Bank Of Fayette County TN | 79.7% | 145% total 279%
|
🔒 | 1.16% |
| Independent Bank TN | 29.7% | 114% total 138%
|
🔒 | 2.84% |
| Fidelity Bank AR | 98.4% | 167% total 214%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Trustmark Bank MS | 6.1% | 237% total 298%
|
🔒 | 0.17% |
| The Park National Bank OH | 5.6% | 197% total 270%
|
🔒 | 0.81% |
| Patriot Bank TN | 100.0% | 182% total 279%
|
🔒 | 0.71% |
| Bank3 TN | 78.3% | 209% total 328%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Security Bank MS | 37.2% | 189% total 298%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| Bankfirst Financial Services MS | 11.5% | 219% total 317%
|
🔒 | 0.32% |
| Bankplus MS | 5.4% | 235% total 371%
|
🔒 | 0.63% |
| Southern Bancorp Bank AR | 6.5% | 174% total 246%
|
🔒 | 1.17% |
| Banktennessee TN | 64.0% | 236% total 286%
|
🔒 | 1.24% |
| Planters Bank & Trust Company MS | 13.3% | 236% total 301%
|
🔒 | 0.61% |
| First Financial Bank AR | 6.5% | 132% total 201%
|
🔒 | 4.49% |
| Community Bank Of Mississippi MS | 4.8% | 202% total 310%
|
🔒 | 0.06% |
| Guaranty Bank And Trust Company MS | 20.7% | 272% total 368%
|
🔒 | 1.05% |
| Firstbank TN | 2.1% | 269% total 386%
|
🔒 | 0.97% |
| Story Bank Dba Story Financial Partners MS | 14.2% | 244% total 366%
|
🔒 | 0.79% |
| First National Bank Of Eastern Arkansas AR | 15.9% | 220% total 252%
|
🔒 | 0.15% |
| The Citizens National Bank Of Meridian MS | 6.7% | 248% total 334%
|
🔒 | 0.68% |
| Security Bank And Trust Company TN | 2.4% | 237% total 277%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Insouth Bank TN | 53.0% | 295% total 400%
|
🔒 | 3.53% |
| Decatur County Bank TN | 3.2% | 202% total 274%
|
🔒 | 0.97% |
| Partners Bank AR | 11.6% | 288% total 361%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Choice Bank MS | 4.1% | 281% total 351%
|
🔒 | 0.01% |
| Paragon Bank TN | 79.1% | 321% total 423%
|
🔒 | 0.23% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank Of Holly Springs | $168M | 95% total 219%
|
3.10% | 🔒 |
| Independent Bank | $270M | 114% total 138%
|
2.84% | 🔒 |
| Evolve Bank & Trust | $258M | 101% total 154%
|
1.52% | 🔒 |
| The Bank Of Fayette County | $300M | 145% total 279%
|
1.16% | 🔒 |
| Banktennessee | $190M | 236% total 286%
|
1.24% | 🔒 |
| First Horizon Bank | $22.5B | 143% total 235%
|
1.12% | 🔒 |
| Patriot Bank | $128M | 182% total 279%
|
0.71% | 🔒 |
| Unity Bank Of Mississippi | $88M | 69% total 282%
|
0.28% | 🔒 |
Memphis capacity reads as slack: CMBS maturing in the window is $189.6mm across 8 loans, against local bank room, after those draws, of $782.5mm, giving a wall-to-room ratio of 0.24 (0.16 before committed draws) — level with the 0.24 median, and ranked 135 of 275 counting from the most strained. Qualifying local banks number 27, with 8 excluded from the calculation; the total CMBS balance here is $790.4mm, committed construction draws are $554.0mm, local bank room before committed draws is $1.20bn, and the distressed share of this metro's CMBS is 6.2%. Treat this as an upper bound: the wall covers CMBS only, and room is a deposit-footprint proxy rather than a measurement, so the excluded banks leave part of the picture unavailable rather than resolved.
| REIT | SS NOI | SS Revenue | Occupancy | Rent | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAA | -12.1% | -1.1% | 94.6% | -0.7% | 2026-07-29 |
Over the most recent 365 days in the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro, the record shows 16 WARN layoff notices affecting 2,444 jobs on those notices, alongside 13 store closures and 0 cRE-related bankruptcies. Two caveats matter for reading these: the jobs figure is a floor, since notices stating no headcount are counted but contribute zero jobs, and the bankruptcy reading is a state-level proxy rather than a metro-native count, so it does not describe activity at Memphis properties specifically.