Commercial and multifamily mortgage origination volumes during the third quarter were 7% lower than during the third quarter of 2011 and 17% lower than during the second quarter, but were up 15% in a year-to-date measurement against 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) quarterly survey of commercial and multifamily mortgage bankers originations.

"Commercial and multifamily mortgage borrowing slowed in the third quarter," says Jamie Woodwell, MBA's vice president of commercial real estate research. "Even though low interest rates continue to make borrowing extremely attractive, a moderate pace of commercial property sales transactions and a continued drop in the volume of commercial mortgages maturing limited the overall amount of commercial mortgage loans originated."

The MBA determines that the 7% year-over-year overall decrease in commercial and multifamily lending volume was driven by decreases in originations for retail and office properties. This included a 35% decrease in the dollar volume of loans for retail properties and a 24% decrease for office properties. However, other sectors showed year-over-year improvement: a 4% increase for hotel properties, a 19% increase for industrial properties, a 19% increase in health care property loans and a 30% increase in multifamily loans.

Among investor types, the dollar volume of loans for life insurance companies decreased by 32% over last year's third quarter. There was an 8% increase for commercial bank portfolios and a 30% increase for government-sponsored enterprise-related activity. There was no change in volume of loans originated for conduits for commercial mortgage-backed securities.